Anaïs Nin

French writer who authored 60 diaries in her 74 years about her SELF (often capitalized), working on perfecting her self-absorption and sex-life. Introspective from youth, she began her diaries at 15. She published four of the diaries from 1966 to 1971. Nin fancied herself an artist, when, in fact, she was a minor writer and a very, very sensitive bore. She nonetheless became an icon for the feminist movement in the 1970s, presenting herself as having successfully defied the conventions of woman's traditional role. She was the among the first to write of personal explorations about sex, self and psychoanalysis. Her marriages and affairs were detailed in her books, Diaries I to IV.

Her dad was the philandering Spanish composer, Joaquin Nin, who abandoned the family when she was 11 but continued to be the overshadowing figure in her life. She would write long letters to her absent dad, detailing the family's daily life. When her dad deserted the family, her mom took the three kids to New York.

Nin worked as a fashion and artist model as well as a Spanish dancer. She both studied and practiced psychoanalysis as well. She was among the first to explore in print three of this century's biggest preoccupations: sex, the self and psychoanalysis. Nin's emphasis on the intimate, personal and instinctual were feminine traits she believed could be used in the reconstruction of a more sensitive world. Her first book, published when she was 27, was about D.H. Lawrence with whom she agreed that lies were essential because most people could not stomach the naked truth. She would brag about lying "bravely, ironically, dually, triply."

Nin clung obsessively to the book that nourished her living; her diary, her "one true friend." She kept both real and false diaries, editing and rewriting them throughout her life in a never-ending recreation of self. Some say her writing reveals a portrait of monstrous egotism and selfishness, horrifying in its callous indifference.