Anaïs Nin
Encyclopedia
Anaïs Nin was a French
-Cuban
author, based at first in France and later in the United States, who published her journal
s, which span more than 60 years, beginning when she was 11 years old and ending shortly before her death, her erotic literature
, and short stories. A great deal of her work, including Delta of Venus
and Little Birds
, was published posthumously.
, France
, to artistic parents. Her father, Joaquín Nin
, was a Cuban pianist and composer, when he met her mother Rosa Culmell, who was a classically trained singer in Cuba of French
and Danish descent. Her father's grandfather had fled France during the Revolution
, going first to Saint-Domingue
, then New Orleans, and finally to Cuba where he helped build that country's first railway.
Nin was raised a Roman Catholic and spent her childhood and early life in Europe. After her parents separated, her mother moved Anaïs and her two brothers, Thorvald Nin and Joaquin Nin-Culmell
, to Barcelona
, and then to New York City
. According to her diaries, Volume One, 1931–1934, Nin abandoned formal schooling at the age of sixteen years and later began working as an artist's model
. After being in America for several years, Nin had forgotten how to speak Spanish
, but retained her French and became fluent in English.
On March 3, 1923, in Havana, Cuba, Nin married her first husband, Hugh Parker Guiler
(1898–1985), a banker and artist, later known as "Ian Hugo" when he became a maker of experimental film
s in the late 1940s. The couple moved to Paris
the following year, where Guiler pursued his banking career and Nin began to pursue her interest in writing; in her diaries she also mentions having trained as a flamenco
dancer in Paris in the mid-to-late 1920s. Her first published work was a critical evaluation of D. H. Lawrence
called D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study
, which she wrote in sixteen days. She also explored the field of psychotherapy
, studying under the likes of Otto Rank
, a disciple of Sigmund Freud
.
Nin left Paris in the late summer of 1939, when residents from overseas were urged to leave France due to the upcoming war and returned to New York City with Guiler (who was, on his own wish, all but edited out of her diaries published in her lifetime and whose role in her life is therefore difficult to gauge). During the war, Nin sent her books to Frances Steloff of the Gotham Book Mart
in New York for safekeeping.
lifestyle with Henry Miller
during her time in Paris. Her husband Guiler is not mentioned anywhere in the published edition of the 1930s parts of her diary (Vol.1–2) although the opening of Vol.1 makes it clear that she is married, and the introduction suggests her husband refused to be included in the published diaries. Nin appeared in the Kenneth Anger
film Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome
(1954) as Astarte
; in the Maya Deren
film Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946); and in Bells of Atlantis (1952), a film directed by Guiler under the name "Ian Hugo" with a soundtrack of electronic music
by Louis and Bebe Barron
.
The diaries edited by her second husband, after her death, tell that her union with Henry Miller was very passionate and physical, and that she believed that it was his child that she aborted in 1934.
In 1947, at the age of 44, she met former actor Rupert Pole
in a Manhattan elevator on her way to a party. The two ended up dating and traveled to California together; Pole was sixteen years her junior. On March 17, 1955, she married him at Quartzsite, Arizona
, returning with Pole to live in California. Guiler remained in New York City and was unaware of Nin's second marriage until after her death in 1977, though biographer Deirdre Bair
alleges that Guiler knew what was happening while Nin was in California, but consciously "chose not to know".
Nin referred to her simultaneous marriages as her "bicoastal trapeze". According to Deidre Bair:
In 1966, Nin had her marriage with Pole annulled, due to the legal issues arising from both Guiler and Pole having to claim her as a dependent on their federal tax returns. Though the marriage was annulled, Nin and Pole continued to live together as if they were married, up until her death in 1977.
After Guiler's death in 1985, the unexpurgated
versions of her journals were commissioned by Pole. Pole died in July 2006.
Nin often cited authors Djuna Barnes
and D. H. Lawrence as inspirations. She states in Volume One of her diaries that she drew inspiration from Marcel Proust
, André Gide
, Jean Cocteau
, Paul Valéry
, and Arthur Rimbaud
.
Nin once worked at Lawrence R. Maxwell Books located at 45 Christopher Street
.
, and other figures, and wrote of them often, especially Otto Rank
. Moreover, as a female author describing a primarily masculine constellation of celebrities, Nin's journals have acquired importance as a counterbalancing perspective.
Previously unpublished works are coming to light in A Café in Space, the Anaïs Nin Literary Journal, which most recently includes "Anaïs Nin and Joaquín Nin y Castellanos: Prelude to a Symphony—Letters between a father and daughter."
.
According to Volume I of her diaries, 1931–1934, published in 1966 (Stuhlmann), Nin first came across erotica when she returned to Paris with her [husband,] mother and two brothers in her late teens. They rented the apartment of an American man who was away for the summer, and Nin came across a number of French paperbacks: "One by one, I read these books, which were completely new to me. I had never read erotic literature in America… They overwhelmed me. I was innocent before I read them, but by the time I had read them all, there was nothing I did not know about sexual exploits… I had my degree in erotic lore."
Faced with a desperate need for money, Nin, Miller and some of their friends began in the 1940s to write erotic and pornographic narratives for an anonymous "collector" for a dollar a page, somewhat as a joke. (It is not clear whether Miller actually wrote these stories or merely allowed his name to be used.) Nin considered the characters in her erotica to be extreme caricatures and never intended the work to be published, but changed her mind in the early 1970s and allowed them to be published as Delta of Venus
and Little Birds
.
Nin was a friend, and in some cases lover, of many leading literary figures, including Henry Miller
, Antonin Artaud
, Edmund Wilson
, Gore Vidal
, James Agee
, James Leo Herlihy
, and Lawrence Durrell
. Her passionate love affair and friendship with Miller strongly influenced her both as a woman and an author. Nin wrote about her infatuation with the Surrealist artist Bridget Bate Tichenor
in her diaries. The rumor that Nin was bisexual was given added circulation by the Philip Kaufman
film Henry & June
. This rumor is dashed by at least two encounters Nin writes about in her third unexpurgated journal, Fire. The first is with a patient of Nin's (Nin was working as a psychoanalyst in New York
at the time), Thurema Sokol, with whom nothing physical occurs. She also describes a ménage à trois in a hotel, and while Nin is attracted to the other woman, she does not respond completely (229–31). Nin confirms that she is not bisexual in her unpublished 1940 diary when she states that although she could be attracted erotically to some women, the sexual act itself made her uncomfortable. What is irrefutable is her sexual attraction to men.
Nin's first unexpurgated journal, Henry and June
, makes it clear, despite the notion to the contrary, that she did not have sexual relations with Miller's wife, June. While Nin was stirred by June to the point where she says (paraphrasing), "I have become June," she did not consummate her erotic feelings for her. Still, to both Anaïs and Henry, June was a femme fatale—irresistible, cunning, erotic. Nin gave June money, jewelry, clothes, oftentimes leaving herself broke. In her second unexpurgated journal, Incest, she wrote that she had an incest
uous relationship with her father, which was graphically described (207–15). When Nin's father learned of the title of her first book of fiction, House of Incest
, he feared that the true nature of their relationship would be revealed, when, in fact, it was heavily veiled in Nin's text.
in the 1960s gave feminist perspectives on Nin's writings of the past twenty years, which made Nin a popular lecturer at various universities; contrarily, Nin disassociated herself from the political activism of the movement.
In 1973 Anaïs Nin received an honorary doctorate
from the Philadelphia College of Art. She was elected to the United States National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1974. She died in Los Angeles, California
on January 14, 1977 after a three year battle with cancer
. Her body was cremated
, and her ashes were scattered over Santa Monica Bay
in Mermaid Cove. Her first husband, Hugh Guiler, died in 1985, and his ashes were scattered in the cove as well. Rupert Pole was named Nin's literary executor
, and he arranged to have new unexpurgated editions of Nin's books and diaries published between 1985 and his death in 2006.
Philip Kaufman
directed the 1990 film Henry & June
based on Nin's novel Henry and June: From the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin
. She was portrayed in the film by Maria de Medeiros
.
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
-Cuban
Cubans
Cubans or Cuban people are the inhabitants or citizens of Cuba. Cuba is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...
author, based at first in France and later in the United States, who published her journal
Diary
A diary is a record with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. A personal diary may include a person's experiences, and/or thoughts or feelings, including comment on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone...
s, which span more than 60 years, beginning when she was 11 years old and ending shortly before her death, her erotic literature
Erotic literature
Erotic literature comprises fictional and factual stories and accounts of human sexual relationships which have the power to or are intended to arouse the reader sexually. Such erotica takes the form of novels, short stories, poetry, true-life memoirs, and sex manuals...
, and short stories. A great deal of her work, including Delta of Venus
Delta of Venus
Delta of Venus is a book of short stories by Anaïs Nin. Though the stories were largely written in the 1940s while Nin was writing erotica for a private collector, the book was first published posthumously in 1978. In 1995 a film version of the book was directed by Zalman King. There are multiple...
and Little Birds
Little Birds
Little Birds is Anaïs Nin's second published work of erotica, published in 1979 but apparently written in the early 1940s when she was part of a group "writing pornography for a dollar a day."...
, was published posthumously.
Early life
Anaïs Nin was born in NeuillyNeuilly-sur-Seine
Neuilly-sur-Seine is a commune in the western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.Although Neuilly is technically a suburb of Paris, it is immediately adjacent to the city and directly extends it. The area is composed of mostly wealthy, select residential...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, to artistic parents. Her father, Joaquín Nin
Joaquin Nin
Joaquín Nin y Castellanos was a Spanish-Cuban pianist and composer.-Biography:Nin studied piano with Moritz Moszkowski and composition at the Schola Cantorum . He toured as a pianist and was known as a composer and arranger of popular Spanish folk music...
, was a Cuban pianist and composer, when he met her mother Rosa Culmell, who was a classically trained singer in Cuba of French
French people
The French are a nation that share a common French culture and speak the French language as a mother tongue. Historically, the French population are descended from peoples of Celtic, Latin and Germanic origin, and are today a mixture of several ethnic groups...
and Danish descent. Her father's grandfather had fled France during the Revolution
French Revolution
The French Revolution , sometimes distinguished as the 'Great French Revolution' , was a period of radical social and political upheaval in France and Europe. The absolute monarchy that had ruled France for centuries collapsed in three years...
, going first to Saint-Domingue
Saint-Domingue
The labour for these plantations was provided by an estimated 790,000 African slaves . Between 1764 and 1771, the average annual importation of slaves varied between 10,000-15,000; by 1786 it was about 28,000, and from 1787 onward, the colony received more than 40,000 slaves a year...
, then New Orleans, and finally to Cuba where he helped build that country's first railway.
Nin was raised a Roman Catholic and spent her childhood and early life in Europe. After her parents separated, her mother moved Anaïs and her two brothers, Thorvald Nin and Joaquin Nin-Culmell
Joaquin Nin-Culmell
Joaquín Maria Nin-Culmell was Cuban-Spanish composer and an internationally known concert pianist, emeritus professor of music at the University of California, Berkeley.-Early life:...
, to Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, and then to New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. According to her diaries, Volume One, 1931–1934, Nin abandoned formal schooling at the age of sixteen years and later began working as an artist's model
Model (person)
A model , sometimes called a mannequin, is a person who is employed to display, advertise and promote commercial products or to serve as a subject of works of art....
. After being in America for several years, Nin had forgotten how to speak Spanish
Spanish language
Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
, but retained her French and became fluent in English.
On March 3, 1923, in Havana, Cuba, Nin married her first husband, Hugh Parker Guiler
Hugh Parker Guiler
Hugh Parker Guiler also known as Ian Hugo was Anaïs Nin's husband from 1923 until her death in 1977, and a skilled engraver and filmmaker in his own right.-Biography:...
(1898–1985), a banker and artist, later known as "Ian Hugo" when he became a maker of experimental film
Experimental film
Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties. Experimental cinema has built its history through the texts of theoreticians...
s in the late 1940s. The couple moved to Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
the following year, where Guiler pursued his banking career and Nin began to pursue her interest in writing; in her diaries she also mentions having trained as a flamenco
Flamenco
Flamenco is a genre of music and dance which has its foundation in Andalusian music and dance and in whose evolution Andalusian Gypsies played an important part....
dancer in Paris in the mid-to-late 1920s. Her first published work was a critical evaluation of D. H. Lawrence
D. H. Lawrence
David Herbert Richards Lawrence was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, literary critic and painter who published as D. H. Lawrence. His collected works represent an extended reflection upon the dehumanising effects of modernity and industrialisation...
called D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study
D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study
D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study was Anaïs Nin's first book in print, published by Edward W. Titus in Paris, 1932. The original edition saw 550 copies, and was relatively well received in the literary community. It is a study of the works of her literary hero D. H. Lawrence...
, which she wrote in sixteen days. She also explored the field of psychotherapy
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...
, studying under the likes of Otto Rank
Otto Rank
Otto Rank was an Austrian psychoanalyst, writer, teacher and therapist. Born in Vienna as Otto Rosenfeld, he was one of Sigmund Freud's closest colleagues for 20 years, a prolific writer on psychoanalytic themes, an editor of the two most important analytic journals, managing director of Freud's...
, a disciple of Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud , born Sigismund Schlomo Freud , was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis...
.
Nin left Paris in the late summer of 1939, when residents from overseas were urged to leave France due to the upcoming war and returned to New York City with Guiler (who was, on his own wish, all but edited out of her diaries published in her lifetime and whose role in her life is therefore difficult to gauge). During the war, Nin sent her books to Frances Steloff of the Gotham Book Mart
Gotham Book Mart
The Gotham Book Mart, in operation from 1920 to 2007, was a famous midtown Manhattan bookstore and cultural landmark. The business was located first in a small basement space on West 45th Street near the Theater District, it then moved to 51 West 47th Street, then spent many years at 41 West 47th...
in New York for safekeeping.
Personal life
According to her diaries,Vol.1, 1931–1934, Nin shared a bohemianBohemian style
In modern usage, the term "Bohemian" is applied to people who live unconventional, usually artistic, lives. The adherents of the "Bloomsbury Group", which formed around the Stephen sisters, Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf in the early 20th century, are among the best-known examples...
lifestyle with Henry Miller
Henry Miller
Henry Valentine Miller was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is...
during her time in Paris. Her husband Guiler is not mentioned anywhere in the published edition of the 1930s parts of her diary (Vol.1–2) although the opening of Vol.1 makes it clear that she is married, and the introduction suggests her husband refused to be included in the published diaries. Nin appeared in the Kenneth Anger
Kenneth Anger
Kenneth Anger is an American underground experimental filmmaker, occasional actor and author...
film Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome
Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome
Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome is a short 38 minute film by Kenneth Anger, filmed in 1954. Anger created two other versions of this film in 1966 and the late 1970s. According to Anger, the film takes the name "pleasure dome" from Samuel Taylor Coleridge's atmospheric poem Kubla Khan...
(1954) as Astarte
Astarte
Astarte is the Greek name of a goddess known throughout the Eastern Mediterranean from the Bronze Age to Classical times...
; in the Maya Deren
Maya Deren
Maya Deren , born Eleanora Derenkowsky, was an American avant-garde filmmaker and film theorist of the 1940s and 1950s...
film Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946); and in Bells of Atlantis (1952), a film directed by Guiler under the name "Ian Hugo" with a soundtrack of electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
by Louis and Bebe Barron
Louis and Bebe Barron
Bebe Barron and Louis Barron were two American pioneers in the field of electronic music...
.
The diaries edited by her second husband, after her death, tell that her union with Henry Miller was very passionate and physical, and that she believed that it was his child that she aborted in 1934.
In 1947, at the age of 44, she met former actor Rupert Pole
Rupert Pole
Rupert Pole was a husband of Anaïs Nin, and her literary executor.Pole was born in Los Angeles. His father Reginald was a highly regarded Shakespearean actor...
in a Manhattan elevator on her way to a party. The two ended up dating and traveled to California together; Pole was sixteen years her junior. On March 17, 1955, she married him at Quartzsite, Arizona
Quartzsite, Arizona
Quartzsite is a town in La Paz County, Arizona, United States. According to Census Bureau estimates, the population of the town was 3,397 in 2006.Interstate 10 runs directly through Quartzsite. It is at the intersection of U.S...
, returning with Pole to live in California. Guiler remained in New York City and was unaware of Nin's second marriage until after her death in 1977, though biographer Deirdre Bair
Deirdre Bair
Deirdre Bair is the critically acclaimed author of five works of nonfiction. She received the National Book Award for Samuel Beckett: A Biography. Her biographies of Simone de Beauvoir and C. G. Jung were finalists for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize...
alleges that Guiler knew what was happening while Nin was in California, but consciously "chose not to know".
Nin referred to her simultaneous marriages as her "bicoastal trapeze". According to Deidre Bair:
In 1966, Nin had her marriage with Pole annulled, due to the legal issues arising from both Guiler and Pole having to claim her as a dependent on their federal tax returns. Though the marriage was annulled, Nin and Pole continued to live together as if they were married, up until her death in 1977.
After Guiler's death in 1985, the unexpurgated
Expurgation
Expurgation is a form of censorship which involves purging anything deemed noxious or offensive, usually from an artistic work.This has also been called bowdlerization, especially for books, after Thomas Bowdler, who in 1818 published an expurgated edition of William Shakespeare's work that he...
versions of her journals were commissioned by Pole. Pole died in July 2006.
Nin often cited authors Djuna Barnes
Djuna Barnes
Djuna Barnes was an American writer who played an important part in the development of 20th century English language modernist writing and was one of the key figures in 1920s and '30s bohemian Paris after filling a similar role in the Greenwich Village of the teens...
and D. H. Lawrence as inspirations. She states in Volume One of her diaries that she drew inspiration from Marcel Proust
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
, André Gide
André Gide
André Paul Guillaume Gide was a French author and winner of the Nobel Prize in literature in 1947. Gide's career ranged from its beginnings in the symbolist movement, to the advent of anticolonialism between the two World Wars.Known for his fiction as well as his autobiographical works, Gide...
, Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau was a French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, María...
, Paul Valéry
Paul Valéry
Ambroise-Paul-Toussaint-Jules Valéry was a French poet, essayist, and philosopher. His interests were sufficiently broad that he can be classified as a polymath...
, and Arthur Rimbaud
Arthur Rimbaud
Jean Nicolas Arthur Rimbaud was a French poet. Born in Charleville, Ardennes, he produced his best known works while still in his late teens—Victor Hugo described him at the time as "an infant Shakespeare"—and he gave up creative writing altogether before the age of 21. As part of the decadent...
.
Nin once worked at Lawrence R. Maxwell Books located at 45 Christopher Street
45 Christopher Street
45 Christopher Street is a landmarked residential building facing south onto Christopher Park in the Greenwich Village Historic District[1] on the west side of lower Manhattan in New York City....
.
Journals
Anaïs Nin is perhaps best remembered as a diarist. Her journals, which span several decades, provide a deeply explorative insight into her personal life and relationships. Nin was acquainted, often quite intimately, with a number of prominent authors, artists, psychoanalystsPsychoanalysis
Psychoanalysis is a psychological theory developed in the late 19th and early 20th centuries by Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud. Psychoanalysis has expanded, been criticized and developed in different directions, mostly by some of Freud's former students, such as Alfred Adler and Carl Gustav...
, and other figures, and wrote of them often, especially Otto Rank
Otto Rank
Otto Rank was an Austrian psychoanalyst, writer, teacher and therapist. Born in Vienna as Otto Rosenfeld, he was one of Sigmund Freud's closest colleagues for 20 years, a prolific writer on psychoanalytic themes, an editor of the two most important analytic journals, managing director of Freud's...
. Moreover, as a female author describing a primarily masculine constellation of celebrities, Nin's journals have acquired importance as a counterbalancing perspective.
Previously unpublished works are coming to light in A Café in Space, the Anaïs Nin Literary Journal, which most recently includes "Anaïs Nin and Joaquín Nin y Castellanos: Prelude to a Symphony—Letters between a father and daughter."
Erotic writings
Nin is hailed by many critics as one of the finest writers of female erotica. She was one of the first women to explore fully the realm of erotic writing, and certainly the first prominent woman in the modern West to write erotica. Before her, erotica written by women was rare, with a few notable exceptions, such as the work of Kate ChopinKate Chopin
Kate Chopin, born Katherine O'Flaherty , was an American author of short stories and novels. She is now considered by some to have been a forerunner of feminist authors of the 20th century....
.
According to Volume I of her diaries, 1931–1934, published in 1966 (Stuhlmann), Nin first came across erotica when she returned to Paris with her [husband,] mother and two brothers in her late teens. They rented the apartment of an American man who was away for the summer, and Nin came across a number of French paperbacks: "One by one, I read these books, which were completely new to me. I had never read erotic literature in America… They overwhelmed me. I was innocent before I read them, but by the time I had read them all, there was nothing I did not know about sexual exploits… I had my degree in erotic lore."
Faced with a desperate need for money, Nin, Miller and some of their friends began in the 1940s to write erotic and pornographic narratives for an anonymous "collector" for a dollar a page, somewhat as a joke. (It is not clear whether Miller actually wrote these stories or merely allowed his name to be used.) Nin considered the characters in her erotica to be extreme caricatures and never intended the work to be published, but changed her mind in the early 1970s and allowed them to be published as Delta of Venus
Delta of Venus
Delta of Venus is a book of short stories by Anaïs Nin. Though the stories were largely written in the 1940s while Nin was writing erotica for a private collector, the book was first published posthumously in 1978. In 1995 a film version of the book was directed by Zalman King. There are multiple...
and Little Birds
Little Birds
Little Birds is Anaïs Nin's second published work of erotica, published in 1979 but apparently written in the early 1940s when she was part of a group "writing pornography for a dollar a day."...
.
Nin was a friend, and in some cases lover, of many leading literary figures, including Henry Miller
Henry Miller
Henry Valentine Miller was an American novelist and painter. He was known for breaking with existing literary forms and developing a new sort of 'novel' that is a mixture of novel, autobiography, social criticism, philosophical reflection, surrealist free association, and mysticism, one that is...
, Antonin Artaud
Antonin Artaud
Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, more well-known as Antonin Artaud was a French playwright, poet, actor and theatre director...
, Edmund Wilson
Edmund Wilson
Edmund Wilson was an American writer and literary and social critic and noted man of letters.-Early life:Wilson was born in Red Bank, New Jersey. His father, Edmund Wilson, Sr., was a lawyer and served as New Jersey Attorney General. Wilson attended The Hill School, a college preparatory...
, Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal
Gore Vidal is an American author, playwright, essayist, screenwriter, and political activist. His third novel, The City and the Pillar , outraged mainstream critics as one of the first major American novels to feature unambiguous homosexuality...
, James Agee
James Agee
James Rufus Agee was an American author, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, he was one of the most influential film critics in the U.S...
, James Leo Herlihy
James Leo Herlihy
James Leo Herlihy was an American novelist, playwright and actor.Born into a working class family in Detroit, Michigan, Herlihy is known for his novels Midnight Cowboy and All Fall Down and his play Blue Denim, all of which were adapted for cinema...
, and Lawrence Durrell
Lawrence Durrell
Lawrence George Durrell was an expatriate British novelist, poet, dramatist, and travel writer, though he resisted affiliation with Britain and preferred to be considered cosmopolitan...
. Her passionate love affair and friendship with Miller strongly influenced her both as a woman and an author. Nin wrote about her infatuation with the Surrealist artist Bridget Bate Tichenor
Bridget Bate Tichenor
Bridget Bate Tichenor , also known as Bridget Tichenor or B.B.T., was a Mexican surrealist painter of fantastic art in the school of magic realism and a fashion editor...
in her diaries. The rumor that Nin was bisexual was given added circulation by the Philip Kaufman
Philip Kaufman
Philip Kaufman is an American film director and screenwriter. His movies have adapted novels of widely different types – from Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being to Michael Crichton’s Rising Sun; from Tom Wolfe’s heroic epic The Right Stuff to the erotic writings of Anaïs Nin’s...
film Henry & June
Henry & June
Henry & June is a 1990 American film directed by Philip Kaufman and stars Fred Ward, Maria de Medeiros, and Uma Thurman. It is loosely based on the book of the same name by the French author Anaïs Nin, and tells the story of Nin's relationship with Henry Miller and his wife, June.-Plot:The story...
. This rumor is dashed by at least two encounters Nin writes about in her third unexpurgated journal, Fire. The first is with a patient of Nin's (Nin was working as a psychoanalyst in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
at the time), Thurema Sokol, with whom nothing physical occurs. She also describes a ménage à trois in a hotel, and while Nin is attracted to the other woman, she does not respond completely (229–31). Nin confirms that she is not bisexual in her unpublished 1940 diary when she states that although she could be attracted erotically to some women, the sexual act itself made her uncomfortable. What is irrefutable is her sexual attraction to men.
Nin's first unexpurgated journal, Henry and June
Henry and June
Henry and June: From the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin is a 1986 book that is based upon material excerpted from the unpublished diaries of Anais Nin...
, makes it clear, despite the notion to the contrary, that she did not have sexual relations with Miller's wife, June. While Nin was stirred by June to the point where she says (paraphrasing), "I have become June," she did not consummate her erotic feelings for her. Still, to both Anaïs and Henry, June was a femme fatale—irresistible, cunning, erotic. Nin gave June money, jewelry, clothes, oftentimes leaving herself broke. In her second unexpurgated journal, Incest, she wrote that she had an incest
Incest
Incest is sexual intercourse between close relatives that is usually illegal in the jurisdiction where it takes place and/or is conventionally considered a taboo. The term may apply to sexual activities between: individuals of close "blood relationship"; members of the same household; step...
uous relationship with her father, which was graphically described (207–15). When Nin's father learned of the title of her first book of fiction, House of Incest
House of Incest
House of Incest is a slim volume of 72 pages written by Anaïs Nin. Originally published in 1936, it is Anaïs Nin's first work of fiction. But unlike her diaries and erotica, House of Incest does not detail the author's relationships with famous lovers like Henry Miller, nor does it contain graphic...
, he feared that the true nature of their relationship would be revealed, when, in fact, it was heavily veiled in Nin's text.
Later life and legacy
The explosion of the feminist movementFeminist movement
The feminist movement refers to a series of campaigns for reforms on issues such as reproductive rights, domestic violence, maternity leave, equal pay, women's suffrage, sexual harassment and sexual violence...
in the 1960s gave feminist perspectives on Nin's writings of the past twenty years, which made Nin a popular lecturer at various universities; contrarily, Nin disassociated herself from the political activism of the movement.
In 1973 Anaïs Nin received an honorary doctorate
Doctorate
A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder to teach in a specific field, A doctorate is an academic degree or professional degree that in most countries refers to a class of degrees which qualify the holder...
from the Philadelphia College of Art. She was elected to the United States National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1974. She died in Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
on January 14, 1977 after a three year battle with cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
. Her body was cremated
Cremation
Cremation is the process of reducing bodies to basic chemical compounds such as gasses and bone fragments. This is accomplished through high-temperature burning, vaporization and oxidation....
, and her ashes were scattered over Santa Monica Bay
Santa Monica Bay
Santa Monica Bay is a bight of the Pacific Ocean in southern California, United States. Its boundaries are slightly ambiguous, but it is generally considered to be the part of the Pacific within an imaginary line drawn between Point Dume, in Malibu, and the Palos Verdes Peninsula. Its eastern...
in Mermaid Cove. Her first husband, Hugh Guiler, died in 1985, and his ashes were scattered in the cove as well. Rupert Pole was named Nin's literary executor
Literary executor
A literary executor is a person with decision-making power in respect of a literary estate. According to Wills, Administration and Taxation: a practical guide "A will may appoint different executors to deal with different parts of the estate...
, and he arranged to have new unexpurgated editions of Nin's books and diaries published between 1985 and his death in 2006.
Philip Kaufman
Philip Kaufman
Philip Kaufman is an American film director and screenwriter. His movies have adapted novels of widely different types – from Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being to Michael Crichton’s Rising Sun; from Tom Wolfe’s heroic epic The Right Stuff to the erotic writings of Anaïs Nin’s...
directed the 1990 film Henry & June
Henry & June
Henry & June is a 1990 American film directed by Philip Kaufman and stars Fred Ward, Maria de Medeiros, and Uma Thurman. It is loosely based on the book of the same name by the French author Anaïs Nin, and tells the story of Nin's relationship with Henry Miller and his wife, June.-Plot:The story...
based on Nin's novel Henry and June: From the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin
Henry and June
Henry and June: From the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin is a 1986 book that is based upon material excerpted from the unpublished diaries of Anais Nin...
. She was portrayed in the film by Maria de Medeiros
Maria de Medeiros
Maria de Medeiros Esteves Vitorino de Almeida, DamSE , better known as Maria de Medeiros , is a Portuguese actress, director, and singer who has been involved in both European and American film productions.-Personal life:...
.
List of works
- Waste of TimelessnessWaste Of TimelessnessWaste of Timelessness and Other Early Stories by Anaïs Nin, 1977, Magic Circle Press is a small collection of short stories by Anaïs Nin, written before she or anyone else thought that she was ready for publication...
: And Other Early Stories (written before 1932, published posthumously) - D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional StudyD. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional StudyD. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study was Anaïs Nin's first book in print, published by Edward W. Titus in Paris, 1932. The original edition saw 550 copies, and was relatively well received in the literary community. It is a study of the works of her literary hero D. H. Lawrence...
(1932) - House of IncestHouse of IncestHouse of Incest is a slim volume of 72 pages written by Anaïs Nin. Originally published in 1936, it is Anaïs Nin's first work of fiction. But unlike her diaries and erotica, House of Incest does not detail the author's relationships with famous lovers like Henry Miller, nor does it contain graphic...
(1936) - Winter of ArtificeWinter of ArtificeWinter of Artifice, published in 1939, is Anaïs Nin's second published book, containing subsequently alternating novelettes.-1939 Edition:...
(1939) - Under a Glass BellUnder a Glass BellUnder a Glass Bell, originally published in 1944, was the first book by Anaïs Nin to gain attention from the literary establishment. It was published by Nin's own printing press, which she named Gemor Press...
(1944) - Cities of the InteriorCities of the InteriorCities of the Interior is a novel sequence published in one volume containing the five books of Anaïs Nin's "continuous novel": Ladders to Fire, Children of the Albatross, The Four-Chambered Heart, A Spy in the House of Love and Seduction of the Minotaur. This combined volume was first published,...
(1959), in five volumes:- Ladders to Fire
- Children of the Albatross
- The Four-Chambered HeartThe Four-Chambered HeartThe Four-Chambered Heart is a 1950 autobiographical novel by French-born writer Anaïs Nin, part of her Cities of the Interior sequence. It is about a woman named Djuna, her love, her thoughts, her emotions, her doubts, her decisions, and her sacrifices...
- A Spy in the House of Love
- Seduction of the MinotaurSeduction of the MinotaurSeduction of the Minotaur is an autobiographical novel by the mixed nationality writer Anaïs Nin, the last part of her Cities of the Interior sequence. It is about a woman named Djuna, and her self-psychoanalysis...
, originally published as Solar Barque (1958).
- Delta of VenusDelta of VenusDelta of Venus is a book of short stories by Anaïs Nin. Though the stories were largely written in the 1940s while Nin was writing erotica for a private collector, the book was first published posthumously in 1978. In 1995 a film version of the book was directed by Zalman King. There are multiple...
(1977) - Little BirdsLittle BirdsLittle Birds is Anaïs Nin's second published work of erotica, published in 1979 but apparently written in the early 1940s when she was part of a group "writing pornography for a dollar a day."...
(1979) - CollagesCollages (Anaïs Nin)Collages, published in 1964, was Anaïs Nin's last published novel . It is very different from the previous novels of the Cities of the Interior series, because it contains none of the familiar characters in those novels...
(1964) - The Early Diary of Anaïs NinThe Early Diary of Anaïs NinThe Early Diary of Anaïs Nin, in four volumes, is the portion of Anaïs Nin's lifelong personal journal and notebook from the period before it had to be split because it became so personal that only portions could be published while any of the people involved were still living.-Linotte :Translated...
(1931–1947), in four volumes - The Diary of Anaïs NinThe Diary of Anaïs NinThe Diary of Anaïs Nin is the published version of Anaïs Nin's own private manuscript diary, which she began at age 11 in 1914 during a trip from Europe to New York with her mother and two brothers...
, in seven volumes, edited by herself - The Novel of the Future (1968)
- In Favor of the Sensitive Man (1976)
- A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin & Henry Miller (1987)
- Henry and JuneHenry and JuneHenry and June: From the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin is a 1986 book that is based upon material excerpted from the unpublished diaries of Anais Nin...
: From a Journal of Love (1986), edited by Rupert Pole after her death - Incest: From a Journal of Love (1992)
- Fire: From A Journal of LoveFire: From A Journal of LoveFire: From the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin is a 1995 book that is based upon material excerpted from the unpublished diaries of Anais Nin...
(1995) - Nearer the Moon: From A Journal of LoveNearer the Moon: From A Journal of LoveNearer the Moon: From a Journal of Love is a 1996 book based upon material excerpted from the unpublished diaries of Anaïs Nin. It corresponds temporally to part of Nin's published diaries...
(1996) - White Stains a collection of erotica to which, according to most Nin scholars, Anaïs Nin did not contribute, although it possibly includes the work of others who wrote for the same collector.
- Aphrodisiac: Erotic Drawings by John Boyce for Selected Passages from the Works of Anaïs Nin
See also
- List of Cuban American writers
- List of Cuban Americans
- Barthold FlesBarthold FlesBarthold Fles was a Dutch-American literary agent, author, translator, editor and publisher. Among his many clients were Raymond Loewy, Heinrich Mann, Joseph Roth, Felix Salten, Ignazio Silone, Bruno Walter and Arnold Zweig.-Life and career:Barthold "Bart" Fles was born in Amsterdam into an...
- Otto RankOtto RankOtto Rank was an Austrian psychoanalyst, writer, teacher and therapist. Born in Vienna as Otto Rosenfeld, he was one of Sigmund Freud's closest colleagues for 20 years, a prolific writer on psychoanalytic themes, an editor of the two most important analytic journals, managing director of Freud's...
External links
- Anaïs Nin quotations at WikiQuote
- The Official Anaïs Nin Blog
- Sky Blue Press Preserving and promoting her literary work.
- Anaïs Nin.com
- Anaïs In Paris Anaïs Nin scholarly resources, news & multimedia – since 1995] (new site host Oct 2011)
- "Anaïs Nin" Encyclopædia Britannica,
- Works by or about Anaïs Nin at Internet ArchiveInternet ArchiveThe Internet Archive is a non-profit digital library with the stated mission of "universal access to all knowledge". It offers permanent storage and access to collections of digitized materials, including websites, music, moving images, and nearly 3 million public domain books. The Internet Archive...
(scanned books original editions color illustrated) - Anaïs Nin: 82nd Avenue
- The House of Incest
- Ian Hugo (Nin's husband)
- Fox, Margalit. (30 July 2006). "Rupert Pole, 87, Diarist's Duplicate Spouse, Dies", The New York Times
- Anaïs Nin Letters, 1932–1946 at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, Special Collections Research Center
- Anaïs Nin video text