Steve King

Janet Flanner – Life, Career, and Famous Quotes

Discover the life, journalism, and legacy of Janet Flanner — American expatriate correspondent for The New Yorker, pioneer of narrative reporting, and celebrated chronicler of Parisian culture and politics.

Introduction

Janet Flanner (March 13, 1892 – November 7, 1978) was an American journalist and writer who became one of the most influential foreign correspondents of the 20th century. For fifty years, she wrote the “Letter from Paris” column in The New Yorker, reporting on culture, society, art, politics, and war from her perch in Europe. Her distinctive voice, sharp observations, and elegant prose made her a bridge between American readers and European life, shaping perceptions of transatlantic modernism, intellectual life, and the upheavals of her era.

In what follows, we trace her early life, journalistic journey, major works and impact, her style and personality, some of her memorable quotes, and the lessons her life offers.

Early Life and Family

Janet Flanner was born in Indianapolis, Indiana, to Frank Flanner and Mary Ellen (Hockett) Flanner.

In her youth, Flanner and her family traveled abroad, and she attended Tudor Hall School for Girls (later Park Tudor School) before enrolling at the University of Chicago in 1912. film critic for the Indianapolis Star.

Her early exposure to literature, theater, art, and journalism helped shape the sensibility she would later bring to her reportage.

Move to Paris & Journalism Career

Joining The New Yorker as "Genêt"

In the early 1920s, Flanner gravitated toward New York’s literary and artistic circles. Through her acquaintance with Jane Grant (cofounder of The New Yorker) and painter Neysa McMein, she was introduced to The New Yorker’s founder, Harold Ross. “Letter from Paris” column — under the pen name Genêt — and would continue contributing at roughly fortnightly intervals for the next five decades.

In her columns, she covered a wide array of topics: artistic salons, literature, politics, social change, crime, and the shifting moods of Paris.

War Correspondent & Historic Coverage

During the years leading up to and during World War II, Flanner intensified her political reportage. In 1936, she published a three-part profile of Adolf Hitler in The New Yorker, titled “Führer I, II, III”.

Following the Allied liberation of Paris in 1944, she returned to Europe and broadcast for NBC’s Blue Network with a program called Listen: the Women. Nuremberg Trials (1945) for The New Yorker.

After the war, she continued reporting on major political and cultural events: the Suez Crisis, the Hungarian uprising (1956), and the Algerian decolonization struggle, among others.

Major Works, Recognition & Legacy

Publications

Over her lifetime, Janet Flanner published a range of books and collections, many drawn from her New Yorker columns. Some notable works:

• The Cubical City (1926) — a novel, though less successful than her journalism efforts

• Paris Was Yesterday, 1925–1939 — a collection of her Letter from Paris writings from the interwar years

• Paris Journal, 1944–1965 — a finalist for the National Book Award; she won the 1966 National Book Award (Arts and Letters) for this volume

• Men & Monuments (profiles of cultural figures)

• Janet Flanner’s World: New and Uncollected Pieces, 1932–1975

• Darlinghissima: Letters to a Friend (posthumously published letters)

Honors and Impact

• In 1947, Flanner was made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor by the French government.

• In 1958, she received an honorary doctorate from Smith College.

• In 1966, she won the National Book Award in the Arts & Letters category for Paris Journal, 1944–1965.

Flanner’s legacy lies not only in her reportage, but in how she blended cultural insight, social observation, and political commentary. Her prose style — polished, conversational, ironic yet affectionate — became a template for narrative journalism. She helped define The New Yorker’s transatlantic voice and cemented the role of the foreign correspondent in shaping cultural and political understanding.

Moreover, she was part of the American expatriate milieu in Paris — intimate with luminaries like Gertrude Stein, Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, James Joyce, and others. Her social networks and intellectual cross-currents enriched her writing and influence.

Personality, Style & Relationships

Janet Flanner was known for her elegance, wit, fearless curiosity, and moral as well as aesthetic sensibility. She had a capacity to see both the foibles and the grandeur of human life, and she practiced a form of reportage that was as much personal essay as journalism.

In her personal life:

• Early in 1918, she married William “Lane” Rehm, a friend from her university years, but the marriage ended by 1926.

• Around the same time, she met Solita Solano (a writer and critic), with whom she entered a lifelong romantic and intellectual partnership. Solano also acted as Flanner’s researcher, typist, and close ally.

• Later, Flanner had a close relationship with Natalia Danesi Murray, a publisher. From about 1940 until Flanner’s death, their partnership was enduring.

• Though their life was not always monogamous, these relationships formed the emotional and social backbone of her life abroad.

Flanner’s style combined quiet authority and modesty. She was legendary for rewriting sentences repeatedly, for finding the exact nuance, for combining reportage with lyrical phrasing. As she once remarked:

“I keep going over a sentence. I nag it, gnaw it, pat and flatter it.”

Her voice could be detached, ironic, indulgent, empathetic, or sharply critical — but always attuned to nuance.

Famous Quotes of Janet Flanner

Here are several of Flanner’s well-known quotations that reflect her thought and style:

• “I keep going over a sentence. I nag it, gnaw it, pat and flatter it.”

• “I act as a sponge. I soak it up and squeeze it out in ink every two weeks.”

• “Genius is immediate, but talent takes time.”

• “When you look at the startling ruins of Nuremberg, you are looking at a result of the war. When you look at the prisoners on view in the courthouse, you are looking at 22 of the causes.”

• “By jove, no wonder women don’t love war nor understand it, nor can operate in it as a rule; it takes a man to suffer what other men have invented.”

• “History looks queer when you’re standing close to it, watching where it is coming from and how it is being made.”

• “The stench of human wreckage in which the Nazi regime finally sank down to defeat has been the most shocking fact of modern times.”

These quotes show her attentiveness to the human, the moral, and the aesthetic in conflict and culture.

Lessons from Janet Flanner

Janet Flanner’s life and work provide a number of enduring lessons:

1. Cultivate a distinctive voice — Her columns were not generic dispatches but deeply personal, observant, with a style all her own.

2. Bridge culture and politics — She demonstrated that reporting on art, literature, society, and politics can be interwoven, enriching each dimension.

3. Persist in craft — Her iterative approach to writing (rewriting, refining) underscores that good work is rarely effortless.

4. Live transnationally — As an expatriate, she embraced a transatlantic identity, becoming a cultural translator across borders.

5. Embrace moral conscience — She did not shy from difficult themes — war, destruction, human suffering — and used her pen to grapple with them.

6. Relationship and community matter — Her partnerships (Solano, Murray) and friendships in literary circles sustained her over decades of work.

Conclusion

Janet Flanner was more than a chronicler of Paris; she was a cultural interface, a literary reporter, a moral witness, and a stylist in prose. Over half a century, she narrated war, renewal, change, and continuity for readers across the Atlantic. Her contributions shaped how Americans perceived European life in the 20th century, and her style influenced generations of writers. If you like, I can prepare a chronological timeline of her life, a full bibliography, or deeper analysis on one of her major works (e.g. Paris Journal). Would you like me to do that next?