Anaïs Nin | |
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Portrait of Nin, c. 1920
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Born | Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell 1903 Neuilly-sur-Seine, France |
Died | January 14, 1977 Los Angeles, California |
(aged 73)
Occupation | Author |
Nationality | Cuban American |
Genre | Journals Erotic literature Short stories Essays |
Spouse |
Hugh Parker Guiler (1923–1955) Rupert Pole (1955–1966) |
Relatives | Joaquín Nin (father), Joaquín Nin-Culmell (brother) |
Anaïs Nin (Spanish: [anaˈis ˈnin]; born Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell; February 21, 1903 – January 14, 1977) was an essayist and memoirist born to Cuban parents in France, where she was also raised. She spent some time in Spain and Cuba, but lived most of her life in the United States, where she became an established author. She wrote journals (which span more than 60 years, beginning when she was 11 years old and ending shortly before her death), novels, critical studies, essays, short stories, and erotica. A great deal of her work, including Delta of Venus and Little Birds, was published posthumously.
Anaïs Nin was born in Neuilly, France, to artistic parents. Her father, Joaquín Nin, was a Cuban pianist and composer of Catalan Spanish descent when he met her mother, Rosa Culmell, a classically trained Cuban singer 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 but left the Catholic Church at the age of 16. She spent her childhood and early life in Europe. After her parents separated, her mother moved Anaïs and her two brothers, Thorvald Nin and Joaquín Nin-Culmell, to Barcelona, and then to New York City. According to her diaries, Volume One, 1931–1934, Nin abandoned formal schooling at sixteen 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.