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Mina Loy (1882–1966) was a key figure of the European and American modernist avant-garde - a ground-breaking writer of poetry, novels, essays, plays, and prose. The 'writings' in question are several versions of an autobiography that Loy never really managed to complete but wrote and rewrote between the 1920s and the 1950s, across many aesthetic changes and much political turmoil as she moved from England to Paris to Florence and then to New York and finally died in Aspen Colorado.

The beauty of these writings is that they capture the spirit of a modern consciousness forming at the cusp of a new era. Loy focuses on her Victorian childhood, her half Jewish identity, her mother's rageful, restrictive behaviour and the newness of modernity as a promise of escape.

Sandeep Parmar, Professor of English Literature at the University of Liverpool, maps out this making and remaking of self, on the street where Loy grew up in Hampstead, and speak to those who can help put her life writing into perspective.

Contributors include Professor Sara Crangle at Sussex University, Dr Sophie Oliver at Liverpool University and Dr Dinah Roe at Oxford Brookes University.
The reader is Ruth Everett.

Mina Loy archive interview reproduced with kind permission from Roger L Conover.

Producer: Mohini Patel