Danica Davidson

Anaïs Nin was born on February 21, 1903 and started writing at a young age.  When she was eleven, she began the diaries that would later make her famous.  At the time she wrote these diaries as a correspondence to her father, who had left the family, but they would later become something entirely else.

In Nin’s diaries, she did something very few people do.  She expressed herself, digging into the depth of her experiences and describing her life and feelings.  Most people who write in diaries keep them under lock and key, but Nin eventually published hers, first in an edited form while she was alive, and then in unexpurgated volumes after her death.

In these diaries she depicted a life that was especially unique for her time.  Like so many girls growing up in the early twentieth century, she was expected to marry and have children.  While she did marry, she adamantly refused to have any children, and instead wanted to dedicate her life to her art.  Despite all the rejections she received for her books and diaries, she continued on with her devotion to the arts and her own vision.