Anaïs Nin
Anaïs Nin | |
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Los Angeles, California , U.S. | |
Occupation | Author |
Spouse | |
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Relatives | Joaquín Nin-Culmell (brother) |
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Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell[a] (/ˌænaɪˈiːs ˈniːn/ AN-eye-EESS NEEN,[1] French: [ana.is nin]; February 21, 1903 – January 14, 1977) was a French-born American diarist, essayist, novelist, and writer of short stories and erotica. Born to Cuban parents in France, Nin was the daughter of the composer Joaquín Nin and the classically trained singer Rosa Culmell. Nin spent her early years in Spain and Cuba, about sixteen years in Paris (1924–1940), and the remaining half of her life in the United States, where she became an established author.
Nin wrote
In addition to her journals, Nin wrote several novels, critical studies, essays, short stories, and volumes of erotic literature. Much of her work, including the collections of erotica Delta of Venus and Little Birds, was published posthumously amid renewed critical interest in her life and work. Nin spent her later life in Los Angeles, California, where she died of cervical cancer in 1977. She was a finalist for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1976.
Early life
Anaïs Nin was born in Neuilly, France, to Joaquín Nin, a Cuban pianist and composer, and Rosa Culmell,[2] a classically trained Cuban singer.[3] Her father's grandfather had fled France during the French Revolution, going first to Saint-Domingue, then New Orleans, and finally to Cuba, where he helped build the country's first railway.[4]
Nin was raised a
Nin became interested in psychoanalysis and studied extensively, first with René Allendy in 1932 and then with Otto Rank.[9] Both men eventually became her lovers, as she recounts in her Journal.[10] On her second visit to Rank, Nin reflects on her desire to be reborn as a woman and artist. Rank, she observes, helped her move between what she could verbalize in her journals and what remained unarticulated. She discovered the quality and depth of her feelings in the wordless transitions between what she could and could not say. "As he talked, I thought of my difficulties with writing, my struggles to articulate feelings not easily expressed. Of my struggles to find a language for intuition, feeling, instincts which are, in themselves, elusive, subtle, and wordless."[11]
In late summer 1939, when residents from overseas were urged to leave France due to the approaching war, Nin left Paris and returned to New York City with her husband (Guiler was, according to his own wishes, edited out of the diaries published during Nin's lifetime; his role in her life is therefore difficult to evaluate).[12] During the war, Nin sent her books to Frances Steloff of the Gotham Book Mart in New York for safekeeping.[13]
In New York, Nin rejoined Otto Rank, who had previously moved there, and moved into his apartment. She actually began to act as a psychoanalyst herself, seeing patients in the room next to Rank's.[14] She quit after several months, however, stating: "I found that I wasn't good because I wasn't objective. I was haunted by my patients. I wanted to intercede."[15] It was in New York that she met the Japanese-American modernist photographer Soichi Sunami, who went on to photograph her for many of her books.
Literary career
Journals
Nin's most studied works are her diaries or journals, which she began writing in her adolescence. The published journals, which span six decades, provide insight into her personal life and relationships. Nin was acquainted, often intimately, with a number of prominent authors, artists,
In the second volume of her
Previously unpublished works were released in A Café in Space, the Anaïs Nin Literary Journal, which includes "Anaïs Nin and Joaquín Nin y Castellanos: Prelude to a Symphony – Letters between a father and daughter".
So far sixteen volumes of her journals have been published. All but the last five of her adult journals are in expurgated form.
Erotic writings
Nin is hailed by many critics as one of the finest writers of female erotica. She was one of the first women known to explore fully the realm of erotic writing, and certainly the first prominent woman in the modern West known to write erotica. Before her, erotica acknowledged to be written by women was rare, with a few notable exceptions, such as the work of Kate Chopin. Nin often cited authors Djuna Barnes and D. H. Lawrence as inspirations, and she states in Volume One of her diaries that she drew inspiration from Marcel Proust,[18] André Gide,[19] Jean Cocteau,[20] Paul Valéry,[21] and Arthur Rimbaud.[22]
According to Volume One of her diaries, 1931–1934, published in 1966, 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."[23]
Faced with a desperate need for money, Nin, Henry 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.[24] (It is not clear whether Miller actually wrote these stories or merely allowed his name to be used.[25]) 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[26][27] and Little Birds. In 2016, a previously undiscovered collection of Nin's erotica, Auletris, was published for the first time.[28]
Nin was a friend, and in some cases lover, of many literary figures, including Miller,
Novels and other publications
In addition to her journals and collections of erotica, Nin wrote several novels, which were frequently associated by critics with the surrealist movement.[29] Her first book of fiction, House of Incest (1936), contains heavily veiled allusions to a brief sexual relationship Nin had with her father in 1933: while visiting her estranged father in France, the then-thirty-year-old Nin had a brief incestuous sexual relationship with him.[30] In 1944, she published a collection of short stories titled Under a Glass Bell, which were reviewed by Edmund Wilson.[15]
Nin was also the author of several works of non-fiction: Her first publication, written during her years studying psychoanalysis, was
Personal life
According to her diaries, Vol. 1, 1931–1934, Nin shared a bohemian 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 declined to be included in the published diaries. The diaries edited by her second husband, after her death, tell that her union with Miller was very passionate and physical, and that she believed that it was a pregnancy by him that she aborted in 1934.
In 1947, at the age of 44, Nin met former actor Rupert Pole in a Manhattan elevator on her way to a party.[33][34] The two began a relationship and traveled to California together; Pole was sixteen years her junior. On March 17, 1955, while still married to Guiler, she married Pole at Quartzsite, Arizona, returning with him to live in California.[35] 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".[34]
Nin referred to her simultaneous marriages as her "bicoastal trapeze".[34] According to Deidre Bair:
[Anaïs] would set up these elaborate façades in Los Angeles and in New York, but it became so complicated that she had to create something she called the lie box. She had this absolutely enormous purse and in the purse she had two sets of checkbooks. One said Anaïs Guiler for New York and another said Anaïs Pole for Los Angeles. She had prescription bottles from California doctors and New York doctors with the two different names. And she had a collection of file cards. And she said, "I tell so many lies I have to write them down and keep them in the lie box so I can keep them straight."[34]
In 1966, Nin had her marriage with Pole annulled, due to the legal issues arising from both Guiler and Pole trying to claim her as a dependent on their federal tax returns.[36] Though the marriage was annulled, Nin and Pole continued to live together as if they were married until her death in 1977. According to Barbara Kraft, prior to her death, Nin had written to Guiler asking for his forgiveness. He responded by writing how meaningful his life had been because of her.[37]
After Guiler's death in 1985, the unexpurgated versions of her journals were commissioned by Pole.[38] Six volumes have been published: Henry and June, Fire, Incest, Nearer the Moon, Mirages, and Trapeze. Pole arranged for Guiler's ashes to be scattered in the same area where Nin's ashes were scattered, Mermaid Cove in Santa Monica Bay.[39] Pole died in July 2006.[40]
Nin once worked at Lawrence R. Maxwell Books, located at
Death
Nin was diagnosed with cervical cancer in 1974.[43] She battled the cancer for two years as it metastasized, and underwent numerous surgical operations, radiation, and chemotherapy.[42] Nin died of the cancer at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, on January 14, 1977.[44][45][15]
Her body was
Legacy
The explosion of the
The Italian film La stanza delle parole (dubbed into English as The Room of Words) was released in 1989 based on the Henry and June diaries. Philip Kaufman directed the 1990 film Henry & June based on Nin's diaries published as Henry and June: From the Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin. She was portrayed in the film by actress Maria de Medeiros.
In February 2008, poet
Cuban-American writer Daína Chaviano paid homage to Anaïs Nin and Henry Miller in her novel Gata encerrada (2001), where both characters are portrayed as disembodied spirits whose previous lives they shared with Melisa, the main character—and presumably Chaviano's alter ego—, a young Cuban obsessed with Anaïs Nin.[52]
The Cuban poet and novelist Wendy Guerra, long fascinated with Nin's life and works, published a fictional diary in Nin's voice, Posar desnuda en la Habana (Posing Nude in Havana) in 2012. She explained that "[Nin's] Cuban Diary has very few pages and my delirium was always to write an apocryphal novel; literary conjecture about what might have happened".[53]
On September 27, 2013, screenwriter and author
In 2015, The Erotic Adventures of Anais Nin a documentary film directed by Sarah Aspinall, was released, in which Lucy Cohu portrayed Nin's character.
In 2019,
In 2002 Alissa Levy Caiano produced a short film called The All-Seeing based on Nin's short story of the same name in Under a Glass Bell.[57]
In 2021, the
Bibliography
Diaries
- The Early Diary of Anaïs Nin (1914–1931), in four volumes
- The Diary of Anaïs Nin, in seven volumes, edited by herself
- Henry and June: From a Journal of Love. The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin (1931–1932) (1986), edited by Rupert Pole after her death
- Incest: From a Journal of Love (1992)
- Fire: From a Journal of Love(1995)
- Nearer the Moon: From a Journal of Love(1996)
- Mirages: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1939–1947 (2013)
- Trapeze: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1947–1955 (2017)
- The Diary of Others: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1955–1966 (2021)
- A Joyous Transformation: The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1966–1977 (forthcoming)
Correspondence
- A Literate Passion: Letters of Anaïs Nin & Henry Miller 1932–1953 (1988)
- Letters to a friend in Australia (1992)
- Arrows of Longing: Correspondence Between Anaïs Nin & Felix Pollack, 1952–1976 (1998)
- Morale des épicentres (2004)
- Reunited: The Correspondence of Anaïs and Joaquin Nin, 1933–1940 (2020)
- Letters to Lawrence Durrell 1937–1977 (2020)
Novels
- House of Incest (1936)
- Winter of Artifice (1939)
- Cities of the Interior (1959), in five volumes:
- Ladders to Fire
- Children of the Albatross
- The Four-Chambered Heart
- A Spy in the House of Love
- Seduction of the Minotaur, originally published as Solar Barque (1958).
- Collages (1964)
Short stories
- Waste of Timelessness: And Other Early Stories (written before 1932, published posthumously)
- Under a Glass Bell (1944)
- Delta of Venus (1977)
- Little Birds (1979)
- Auletris (2016)
Non-fiction
- D. H. Lawrence: An Unprofessional Study (1932)
- The Novel of the Future (1968)
- In Favor of the Sensitive Man (1976)
- The Mystic of Sex: Uncollected Writings: 1930-1974 (1995)
Filmography
- Lascivious Folk Ballet (1946) - (Outtakes from Ritual in Transfigured Time).
- Ritual in Transfigured Time (1946): Short film, dir. Maya Deren[7]
- Bells of Atlantis (1952): Short film, dir. Ian Hugo[59]
- Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome (1954): Short film, dir. Kenneth Anger[7]
- Melodic Inversion (1958)
- Lectures pour tous (1964)
- Anaïs Nin Her Diary (1966)
- Un moment avec une grande figure de la littérature, Anaïs Nin, (3 May 1968)
- Anaïs Nin at the University of California, Berkeley, (December 1971)
- Anaïs Nin at Hampshire College, (1972)
- 'Ouvrez les guillemets, (11 November 1974)
- Journal de Paris, (21 November 1974)
- Anais Nin Observed (1974): Documentary, dir. Robert Snyder[59]
See also
- List of Cuban American writers
- List of Cuban Americans
Notes
- Spanish name, the first or paternal surnameis Nin and the second or maternal family name is Culmell.
Citations
- ISBN 978-0299142445.
- ^ a b c Liukkonen, Petri. "Anaïs Nin profile". kirjasto.sci.fi (in Finnish). Finland: Kuusankoski Public Library. Archived from the original on 23 January 2012.
- ^ Fenner, Andrew. "The Unique Anaïs Nin". Retrieved December 26, 2016.
- ^ Nin 1966, p. 125.
- ^ Stuhlmann, Gunther. A Spy In The House Of Love (Foreword). Swallow Press. p. 3.
- ^ Nin & DuBow 1994, p. 126.
- ^ a b c Nin & DuBow 1994, p. xxi.
- ^ Nin 1966, p. 183.
- ISBN 978-1438108094.
- ^ Anais Nin, Journal (1931–1934), Paris: Le Livre de Poche, 1966, pp. 138, 171–172, 237, 404, 505, passim.
- ^ Nin 1966, p. 276.
- ^ "Several persons, when faced with the question of whether they wanted to remain in the diary 'as is' ... chose to be deleted altogether from the manuscript (including her husband and some members of her family)." The Diary of Anaïs Nin, ed. by Gunther Stuhlmann. Harcourt, 1966, p. xi.
- ^ Griffin, M. Collins. "Frances Steloff". AnaisNin.com. Archived from the original on August 12, 2014. Retrieved October 2, 2017.
- ^ Nin 1967, pp. 17–25.
- ^ a b c Fraser, C. Gerald (January 16, 1977). "Anais Nin, Author Whose Diaries Depicted Intellectual Life, Dead". The New York Times. Retrieved September 1, 2017.
- ^ Liukkonen, Petri. "Anaïs Nin". authorscalendar.info. Retrieved 2022-08-20.
- ^ "Nin, Anais (1903–1977) | Encyclopedia.com". www.encyclopedia.com. Retrieved 2022-08-20.
- ^ Nin 1966, p. 15.
- ^ Nin 1966, p. 45.
- ^ Nin 1966, pp. 60, 109.
- ^ Nin 1966, p. 60.
- ^ Nin 1966, p. 29, 40.
- ^ Nin 1966, p. 96.
- ISBN 978-0812205855.
- ISBN 0316284289
- ISBN 978-0815308249.
- ISBN 978-0415198950.
- ^ Raab, Diana (November 3, 2016). "The Sexual Censorship Controversy". Psychology Today. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
- ^ "Anaïs Nin". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved October 6, 2017.
- (PDF) from the original on 2022-10-09.
- ^ a b Franklin 1996, p. 6.
- ^ Franklin 1996, p. 127.
- ^ Corbett, Sara (2006-12-31). "The Lover Who Always Stays". New York Times. Retrieved 2011-02-16.
- ^ a b c d e "Anais Nin Husband, Rupert Pole, Dies in L.A." National Public Radio (NPR). July 29, 2006. Retrieved February 16, 2011.
- ^ Woo, Elaine (July 26, 2006). "The Ranger Who Told All About Anais Nin's Wild Life". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved October 4, 2017.
- ^ Woo, Elaine (2006-07-27). "Rupert Pole, executor of exotic works by Anaïs Nin". Boston Globe. Retrieved 2011-02-16.
- ISBN 978-0988968752, 2013, p. 200
- ^ Woo, Elaine (July 26, 2006). "The Ranger Who Told All About Anais Nin's Wild Life". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 8 August 2012.
- ^ "Anais Nin Husband, Rupert Pole Dies in L.A." NPR.org. Retrieved Apr 28, 2020.
- ^ Fox, Margalit (July 30, 2006). "Rupert Pole, 87, Diarist's Duplicate Spouse, Dies". The New York Times. Retrieved October 6, 2017.
- ^ Nin & DuBow 1994, pp. xxi–xxii.
- ^ a b Kraft, Barbara (December 13, 2016). "Anaïs Nin: The Last Days". Cultural Weekly. Retrieved September 28, 2017.
- ^ Herron 1996, p. 235.
- ISBN 978-0965236409.
- ^ Nin, Anaïs. Rauner Library Letters (September 1975): "I suppose you know I have been fighting cancer for 9 months – just recovering very slowly."
- ^ Nin, Anais. Finding Aid for the Anais Nin Papers, ca. 1910–1977, File: 2066. Online Archive of California: Charles E. Young Research Library, UCLA Library Special Collections. Retrieved Nov 26, 2020.
- ^ "Times Woman of the Year – Anais Nin". Los Angeles Times. June 6, 2011. Retrieved February 2, 2015.
- ^ Kosnett, Rena (February 6, 2008). "All About Anais Nin". LA Weekly. Retrieved October 5, 2017.
- ^ "Writer garners personal praise". The Daily Bruin. University of California, Los Angeles. February 12, 2008. Archived from the original on May 24, 2008.
- ^ "The First Lady of Electronic Music Passes: Bebe Barron". Echoes. 2008-04-21. Retrieved October 4, 2017.
- ^ Reigns, Steven (February 2014). "Bern Porter's Wild Sexual Life with Anais Nin or Wild Imaginings?". A Cafe in Space: The Anais Nin Literary Journal. republished: Reigns, Steven. "Bern Porter's Wild Sexual Life with Anais Nin or Wild Imaginings?". Archived from the original on 2016-04-14. Retrieved May 30, 2016.
- ^ Rodríguez, Antonio O. and Andricaín, Sergio. "Fusión de erotismo y magia: Gata encerrada es una novela cautivadora". Newsweek en Español, July 11, 2001
- ^ Sanchez, Yoani (9 February 2015). "Cuban Author Wendy Guerra: 'I'm a Demon Who Writes What She Feels'". HuffPost Latino Voices. Retrieved 30 May 2016.
- ^ The Huffington Post. September 27, 2013. Retrieved September 20, 2013.
- ^ "Spy In The House Of Anaïs Nin: An Interview With Kim Krizan". Hobart. November 1, 2019. Retrieved 2020-07-11.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "Anaïs Nin: A Myth of Her Own". Routledge & CRC Press. Retrieved 2022-08-20.
- ^ "The All Seeing" – via IMDb.
- ^ "Mathilde". ThousandFaces Films.
- ^ a b Nin & DuBow 1994, p. xxii.
Works cited
- ISBN 978-0399139888.
- ISBN 978-0316284288.
- Franklin, Benjamin V., ed. (1996). Recollections of Anaïs Nin. Ohio University Press. ISBN 978-0821411643.
- Nin, Anaïs (1966). The Diary of Anaïs Nin (1931–1934). Vol. 1. Harcourt, Brace & World. ISBN 978-0547538709.
- Nin, Anaïs (1967). The Diary of Anaïs Nin (1934–1939). Vol. 2. Harcourt, Brace & World. ISBN 978-0156260268.
- Nin, Anaïs; DuBow, Wendy M. (1994). Conversations with Anaïs Nin. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 978-0878057191.
Further reading
- Oropeza, Clara. (2019) Anaïs Nin: A Myth of Her Own, Routledge
- Jarczok, Anita (2017). Writing an Icon: Celebrity Culture and the Invention of Anaïs Nin. Ohio University Press. ISBN 978-0804040754.
- Mason, Gregory H., ed. (1998). Arrows of Longing: The Correspondence between Anaïs Nin and Felix Pollak, 1952–1976. Ohio University Press. ISBN 978-0804010061.
- Yaguchi, Yuko. (2022) Anaïs Nin's Paris Revisited The English–French Bilingual Edition (French Edition), Wind Rose-Suiseisha
- Bita, Lili. (1994) "Anais Nin". EI Magazine of European Art Center (EUARCE), Is. 7/1994 pp. 9, 24–30
External links
- The Official Anaïs Nin Blog
- Anaïs Nin.com Thinking of Anaïs Nin
- Anaïs Nin Foundation Contact the Anaïs Nin estate for rights and permissions requests
- Works by or about Anaïs Nin at Internet Archive
- Anaïs Nin at IMDb
- Ian Hugo (Nin's husband) Archived 2017-04-20 at the Wayback Machine
- Anais Nin's Hideaway Home in Los Angeles (2022-03-21 in The New York Times)