Archive for January, 2004

Anaïs Nin

Anais was born in Neuilly, just outside Paris. She spent her childhood in various parts of Europe until, when she was eleven, her father, Spanish composer Joaquin Nin, abandoned his family. In the same year, her French-Danish mother, Rosa Culmell, took Anais and her two sons to New York. On the boat that brought Anais away from Europe and from her father she began to write her journals. In 1923 she married Hugo Guiler, who had studied literature and economics and had acquired a good position in an international bank, allowing them to live comfortably.

The couple moved to Paris in 1924. There they lived in various appartments, among them a beautiful house in Louveciennes, but Anais also often had a studio for herself and lived in a houseboat on the Seine for a while. In Paris she and Hugo supported various avant-garde artists, among them Henry Miller with whom Anais started an affair and exchanged hundreds of letters. The book A literary passion includes a great number of the letters these two artists exchanged over the years and provide an interesting documentary of their struggle for recognition as writers as well as their relationship.

Anais moved back to New York just before the outbreak of World War II. After a turbulent time in New York she divided her life between New York and Los Angeles, between Hugo and Rupert, a much younger lover and friend. From being a cult figure of the early feminist movement, Anais later rose to international prominence with her writing. She is best known for her diaries but also produced a number of novels and a prose poem in surrealistic style as well as wonderful erotic short stories, published posthumously. Characterized by the use of powerful and, at times, disquieting imagery, her work reveals great sensitivity and perception.

In 1973 she received an honorary doctorate from Philadelphia College of Art. She was elected to the National Institute of Arts and Letters in 1974.

Her works (selection)

Fiction

Cities of the Interior, Chicago: Swallow Press / Ohio Univ Press 1974
Ladders to Fire, Swallow Press 1995
Children of the Albatross, Denver : Swallow Press / Ohio Univ. Press 1959
The Four-Chambered Heart, Chicago: Swallow Press / Ohio Univ. Press 1959
Seduction of the Minotaur, Denver: Swallow Press / Ohio Univ. Press 1961
House of Incest, Denver: Swallow Press / Ohio Univ. Press 1958
A Spy in the House of Love, Pocket Books 1994, Mass Market Paperback
Winter of Artifice, Chicago: Swallow Press / Ohio Univ. Press 1961
Collages, Denver: Swallow Press / Ohio Univ. Press 1964
Delta of Venus, Pocket Books 1990, Mass Market Paperback
Little Birds, New York: Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich 1979
Under a Glass Bell, Ohio Univ Pr (Trd) 1995
Waste of Timelessness, And Other Early Stories, Chicago: Swallow Press 1994

Diaries

The Diary of Anais Nin, New York: Harcourt, Brace and World
Volume 1: 1931-1934 (1966)
Volume 2: 1934-1939 (1967)
Volume 3: 1939-1944 (1969)
Volume 4: 1944-1947 (1971)
Volume 5: 1947-1955 (1974)
Volume 6: 1955-1966 (1976)
Volume 7: 1966-1974 (1980)
The Early Diary of Anais Nin, New York: Harcourt Brace
Volume 1: 1914-1920 (1978)
Volume 2: 1920-1923 (1982)
Volume 3: 1923-1927 Journal of a Wife (1984)
Volume 4: 1927-1931 (1985)
Henry and June, from a Journal of Love : The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin, Harcourt Brace 1990
Incest, from a Journal of Love : The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, (1932-1934), Texas Bookman 1992
Fire, from a Journal of Love : The Unexpurgated Diary, (1934-1937), Harcourt Brace 1995
Nearer The Moon, from a Journal of Love : The Unexpurgated Diary of Anais Nin, (1937-1939), New York: Harcourt, Brace & Company 1996