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Leadingwomen
Nancy Cunard 03 August 2007
Nancy Cunard
Writer, activist, and Jazz Age icon.

Nancy Cunard was heir to the great shipping line that bore her name but turned her back on a life of opulence and privilege. In the 1930’s she became an advocate of civil rights and published Negro, an anthology looking at the achievements of black people throughout the world. She was the last reporter on the front line of the Spanish civil war, she was a poet, she ran a printing press and she was also the first to publish Samuel Beckett. She also scandalised her family with a string of lovers and a long relationship with the black musician Henry Crowder led to her being disinherited. Nicola Swords speaks to Nancy's biographer, Dr Lois Gordon, and to Anthony Hobson, who met Nancy Cunard.

Nancy Cunard: Heiress, Muse, Political Idealist by Lois Gordon is published by Columbia University Press
ISBN 978-0-231-13938-0

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