Michael Arlen

Michael Arlen was born Dikran Kouyoumdjian in Bulgaria to Armenian parents and raised in England. He adopted the pen name Michael Arlen and began writing short stories that skewered the manners of the wealthy. His breakthrough came with the 1924 novel The Green Hat, a scandalous and glamorous tale of a doomed aristocratic woman that became a phenomenal bestseller and was adapted into a successful play and film. Arlen's witty, cynical style made him a defining voice of the 1920s, though his later works did not achieve the same acclaim. He spent much of his later life in the United States and France. While his reputation faded after his death, The Green Hat remains a key document of the Jazz Age, and Arlen is remembered as a sharp observer of the era's social mores and excesses.