╛Flanner, Janet1892╨1978journalistBorn in Indianapolis on March 13, 1892, Janet Flanner was of a literary family. She attended the University of Chicago in 1912╨1913 and then returned to Indianapolis and took a job with the Indianapolis Star, becoming the paper╒s first movie critic in 1916. She subsequently worked for a time at a girls╒ reformatory in Pennsylvania. A brief marriage brought her back to Indiana in 1920, and a short time later she moved to New York City to try her hand at serious writing. A European tour ended in her settling in Paris in 1922. In 1926 she published a novel, The Cubical City. In 1925 she had been asked to contribute a biweekly ╥Paris Letter╙ to the newly founded New Yorker magazine. The letters╤sketches of Parisian life, especially among the ╥smart set,╙ and often reflecting through them the effects of politics and public affairs╤were characterized from the first by remarkable degrees of sensibility, wit, and clarity. As analyses of the serious aspects of French society and culture they were unique, and they proved one of the most valuable of the New Yorker╒s assets. An occasional letter dealt with a particular interest of hers, ingenious and bizarre crimes. Harold Ross, first editor of the magazine, gave Flanner the nom de plume ╥GenÉt,╙ which continued to appear after her pieces for some years. For 14 years, until her return to the United States, she was the sole author of the ╥Paris Letters╙; later she also wrote a number of ╥London Letters╙ and several penetrating contributions to the New Yorker╒s ╥Profile╙ series, notably those on Hitler, Thomas Mann, Edith Wharton, Cocteau, Gide, Picasso, Camus, Sartre, Colette, Stravinsky, Josephine Baker, Ravel, Piaf, and Elsa Maxwell, among many others. Those and other pieces comprised An American in Paris, published in 1940. PÄtain: The Old Man of France appeared in 1943. With the Allied liberation in 1944 Flanner returned to France and continued to contribute regularly to the New Yorker. In 1957 she published Men and Monuments. Paris Journal, 1944╨1965, a collection of her pieces edited by William Shawn (editor of the New Yorker) that won a National Book Award, 1965; Paris Journal, 1965╨1971, also edited by Shawn, 1971; Paris Was Yesterday, 1925╨1939, edited by Irving Drutman, 1972; and London Was Yesterday, 1934╨1939, edited by Drutman, 1975, preserved her magazine pieces. Her final Paris Letter was published in the New Yorker in September 1975, a month short of the 50th anniversary of her first. She also translated a number of French works, including ChÄri and Claudine ê L╒âcole by Colette and Ma Vie avec Maeterlinck by Mme. Georgette Le Blanc. Janet Flanner died in New York City on November 7, 1978. ÷styl ` 2 ! ¬ 5¬ 5¬ % !I Σ !I ⌡ !I [ !I k !I ╞ !I ╨ !I ▌ 5¬ ▐ !I R !I ^ !I !I $ !I ] !I ▐ j !I ¿ !I ▐ ╖ !I ╩ !I ▐ ╓ !I !I ! !I 6 !I S !I h 5¬ i !I ╘ !I ▐ !I ≈ !I !I !I # !I g !I q !I Ö !I ▒ !I ╧ !I φ !I !I 2 !I Ö !I ú !I
