Mirages The Unexpurgated Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1939-1947

"The celebrated diarist, novelist and electric personality reappears with all the fire of her eroticism in pages untouched by a Bowdler or a Puritan.... Readers will find Nin a most entertaining companion-her multiple simultaneous relationships with men, her gleefully graphic descriptions of sex acts.... In one late entry, Nin complains, mildly: 'My world is so large I get lost in it'; readers will do the same-and gratefully so." (Kirkus Reviews) "Anaïs Nin (1903-1977) is not only one of history's most dedicated diarists, but also a vocal expounder of the idea that keeping a diary enhances your creativity.... Mirages (is) revelatory in its entirety." (Brain Pickings) "Exquisitely nuanced, ornate, delicate and raw, endlessly evocative and provocative. Nobody does it better." (Washington Independent Review of Books) "(Mirages)...is a highly personal account of Nin's inner life and relationships..." (Choice) "The reader benefits from (Nin's) thoughtful, unique perspective on America in the 1940s, as she reinvented herself as a first-class feminist, entrepreneur and a woman with an incredibly erotic daily life, told through sensual and graphic details.... Anaïs Nin's diaries have become the standard for personal diaries only a few writers could match. The curious reader, seeking graphic details of Nin's encounters with intimacy won't be disappointed." (Blog Critics) "Mirages underscores the dreamlike mindscape of a woman who is fascinating because she is so human-who writes about love and sexuality with a frankness that makes the reader feel intimate with her.... (Mirages introduces) a new generation of readers to a broader, more complete picture of her complicated mind and evocative prose. And Nin's diaries will remain popular not just because of their honest and lurid sexuality, but because of what that honesty demonstrates: the universality of feelings rarely exposed." (The Daily Beast) "At times desperate and suicidal, (Nin) finds life more fulfilling when it conforms to her dreams-a series of mirages she conjures to avoid reality, the horrors of war, and an America she finds abysmally immature.... Nin fans will embrace the book's emotional intensity and sensuality." (Publishers Weekly) "The fifth volume in the unexpurgated series that is gradually replacing the earlier, sanitized edition of Nin's famous diary begins with her 1939 flight from war-shadowed Paris to New York and tracks her struggles to adapt to America and reconfigure her writing life.... Nin-calculating, theatrical, and prodigious-provides cascading insights into the traumas that made her a 'demon of intensity' determined to turn her life into a literary work of unique psychological revelation." (Booklist) "This fifth in a series of unexpurgated diary volumes by American novelist and short story and erotica writer Nin (House of Incest; Delta of Venus) covers a period longer than any other volume to date.... Nin's life was steeped in secrecy, lies, passion, longing, and introspection, perhaps the most so during this period. Of the unexpurgated diary volumes thus far, this one benefits the most from full disclosure, illustrating the greater extents of Nin's fragility and ferocity and revealing dimensions of the writer that deeply enrich the reading of her work." (Library Journal) "The unpublished diary of Anaïs Nin has long been a legend of the literary world." (The New Yorker) "In Mirages, she stands before us, stripped bare, unmasked, triumphant, among her cast of sacred and noires bêtes (Gore Vidal, Henry Miller, et al.) now revealed, by name, as who and what they were to her. Mirages exposes, reveals and humanizes Nin as much more than the sum of heavily edited parts." "Henry Miller called her a 'masterpiece' and the greatest 'fabulist' he had ever known. Her brother Joaquin referred to her as a 'steel hummingbird.' As for me, she was a myth in her own time, the Scheherazade of the diary genre, and epitomizes Harold Bloom's observation in Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human, to wit, 'Romance, literary and human, depends on partial or imperfect knowledge.'" "Mirages provides a treasure of newly disclosed Nin sentiments. Nin transcends self-reflection and offers a glimpse into what women feel but are rarely able to articulate, whether about daily experiences, or love gained and lost. With intense passion, her powerfully seductive prose shares insights, observations, and confessions about the human psyche. Highly recommended."