“The role of a writer is not to say
what we all can say, but what we are unable to say.” – Anais Nin
Born in France on this date in 1903, Nin gravitated to writing early and started keeping
detailed journals at age 11. She
didn’t stop until more than 60 years later at the time of her death, and much
of what she kept in them became fodder for her long and impressive writing
career.
Over her lifetime she wrote
everything from essays to novels, critical studies to short stories and, of
course, her well-known and often controversial takes on erotica. Nin's most important works, in the judgment
of both herself and scholars, are those diaries and journals, which provide a
deeply explorative insight into her personal life and relationships. So far 16 volumes of her journals have been
published. “My ideas,” she once said, “usually come not at my desk writing but
in the midst of living.” And, of course,
she wrote down daily about the life that she lived. 
Shortly before her
1977 death, she was asked what should be the
motivating factor for someone seeking to make a life as a writer. Her answer was simple: “If you do not breathe through writing, if
you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don’t write, because
our culture has no use for it.”
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