Anaïs Nin (February 21, 1903 - January 14, 1977) was a French author who became famous for her self-published diaries, which span a period of forty years, beginning when she was twelve years old.

Born in Neuilly, France, after her parents separated, her mother moved to New York City with her and her two brothers. While still a teenager, Nin abandoned formal schooling and began working as a model. In 1923, she married Hugh Parker Guiler and the following year they moved to Paris, France where Guiler pursued his banking career and Nin began to pursue her interest in writing, working with people such as D.H. Lawrence.

She is also appreciated for her erotica. She was the first woman to really explore the realm. Before her, erotica written by women was virtually (vide, e.g. Kate Chopin) unheard of. Nin wrote the stories in Delta of Venus for a dollar a page in the 1940s.

Nin was a friend of many leading literary figures, including Henry Miller, Edmund Wilson, Gore Vidal, Djuna Barnes, James Agee, and Lawrence Durrell.

Her passionate love affair and friendship with the American author Henry Miller strongly influenced both the woman and the author. In 1990 Philip Kaufman made a film based on her novel Henry & June from The Journal of Love - The unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin 1931-1932.

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. She died of cancer in Los Angeles, California on January 14, 1977, her body was cremated, and her ashes were scattered over Santa Monica Bay.

List of works

• Collages
• Winter of Artifice
• Under a Glass Bell
• House of Incest
• Delta of Venus
• Little Birds
• Cities of the Interior , 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
• The Diary of Anaïs Nin
• The Novel of the Future

References

• Bair, Deirdre: Anais Nin: A Biography. New York: Putnam 1995. ISBN 0-399-13988-5

External links

• The Anaïs Nin Homepage

• Delta of Venus