Harriet Sohmers Zwerling (March 26, 1928 – June 21, 2019) was an American writer and artist's model.

Biography

She attended

Black Mountain College Black Mountain College was a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Black Mountain, North Carolina. It was founded in 1933 by John Andrew Rice, Theodore Dreier, and several others. The coll ...

and lived in Paris in the 1950s as part of the

bohemian Bohemian or Bohemians may refer to: *Anything of or relating to Bohemia Culture and arts * Bohemianism, an unconventional lifestyle, originally practised by 19th–20th century European and American artists and writers. * Bohemian style, a ...

expatriate An expatriate (often shortened to expat) is a person who resides outside their native country. The term often refers to a professional, skilled worker, or student from an affluent country. However, it may also refer to retirees, artists and ...

scene centered on

James Baldwin James Arthur Baldwin (né Jones; August 2, 1924 – December 1, 1987) was an American writer and civil rights activist who garnered acclaim for his essays, novels, plays, and poems. His 1953 novel '' Go Tell It on the Mountain'' has been ranked ...

, with whom she shared space in a literary magazine called ''New Story''. She translated a novel by the

Marquis de Sade Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade ( ; ; 2 June 1740 – 2 December 1814) was a French writer, libertine, political activist and nobleman best known for his libertine novels and imprisonment for sex crimes, blasphemy and pornography ...

for Maurice Girodias'

Olympia Press Olympia Press was a Paris-based publisher, launched in 1953 by Maurice Girodias as a rebranded version of the Obelisk Press he inherited from his father Jack Kahane. It published a mix of erotic fiction and avant-garde literary fiction, and is ...

and worked for the ''

International Herald Tribune The ''International Herald Tribune'' (''IHT'') was a daily English-language newspaper published in Paris, France, for international English-speaking readers. It published under the name ''International Herald Tribune'' starting in 1967, but its ...

''. In 1959, she moved to New York City and was a part of the literary scene there, publishing stories, (one in the anthology ''The Bold New Women'' issued by Fawcett), co-editing the '' Provincetown Review'' and working as an artist's model for some of New York's most important painters. She was bisexual and had a few love relationships with women, including María Irene Fornés from 1954 to 1957, and then

Susan Sontag Susan Lee Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, critic, and public intellectual. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on "Camp", Notes on 'Ca ...

until 1958. In 1963, she married merchant sailor and bohemian Louis Zwerling and had a son, the musician Milo Z. She taught at a school in

Greenpoint, Brooklyn Greenpoint is the northernmost neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is bordered on the southwest by Williamsburg at Bushwick Inlet Park and McCarren Park; on the southeast by the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway and East ...

for 28 years. In 2003, a collection of her writings, ''Notes of a Nude Model & Other Pieces'', was published. She appears in the documentary ''Still Doing It'' about the sex lives of older women. In 2014, she published ''Abroad: An Expatriate's Diaries, 1950–1959'', a book based on her diaries from that period when she lived in Paris. She also appeared in the documentary '' Regarding Susan Sontag'', which was shown at the

Tribeca Film Festival The Tribeca Festival is an annual film festival organized by Tribeca Enterprises. It takes place each spring in New York City, showcasing a diverse selection of film, episodic, talks, music, games, art, and immersive programming. The festival ...

in April 2014. Zwerling died on June 21, 2019, at the age of 91.

Biography

References

Further reading