Ulla Bjerne's debut novel from 1916 was, significantly, called My Other Self (Mitt andra jag).
The main character, the sculptress Nora, is hosting the wildest and most bizarre gang in Montparnasse when she is not traveling listlessly around Europe's metropole's during World War I, trying to find meaning and a place for her split (sexual) identity.
The book opens (my translation):
I had a letter from Uncle Jacob today. It was short but to the point. I am hereby sending money for your return trip. You have no reason to stay in France during the war.
During this same period Ulla Bjerne was herself sent home to Sweden from Barcelona by the Swedish counsellor of legation. Her unescorted visits to cafés and bullfights were simply not acceptable.
She was fictionalizing her own life when she wrote:
-No, a Spanish woman mustn't sit alone in a café, the old senora tells her smiling. And she adds:
-Aren't you being stared at?
-You bet! the other day there was a long line out on the street, all of them gaping at me so that the waiter had to wave his handkerchief to pass the crowd.
In Ulla Bjerne's writing it's easy to find gay themes and characters, but never explicit ones. My conviction nonetheless is that she was bisexual (and that she would find it extremely tacky to have anybody comment on that or use that word.)
Obviously, like any other true bohemian in those days, Ulla Bjerne went to Capri. This, among other things, I will try to learn more about in the coming weeks.
