In the following essay, Kamboureli distinguishes between purveyors of erotica from those of pornography, attempting to establish Nin's Erotica as pornography wherein she focuses as much on poetry as on sexuality.

In the following essay, Jaas discusses Nin's influence on the poetic and personal explorations of the poet Robert Duncan, particularly in light of their respective diary-writing.

In the following essay, Schneider traces the evolution of the narrator in the Diary, contrasting the persona therein with Nin herself and maintaining that the Diary's narrator is a literary creation more than an accurate and objective representation of Nin.

There is a particular sense in which Anaïs Nin's art is related to the Surrealist ideal of magical creation through combinations of entities drawn from different categories. But her work is not itself Surreal, and it is easier to understand the application of the collage idea in terms of a broad definition. Collage includes all works in which components belonging to separate intellectual or perceptual categories are combined, regardless of the nature of the materials or the techniques used to ...

In the following interview, Nin and Freeman discuss the nature of diary writing, in particular the lack of integrity of individual personality over a lifetime and differences between life as lived and as written, as well as criticism of one's own writing and that of others.

In the following essay, McEvilly interprets Nin's writing in her diary as a poetic examination of the self.

The intriguing and engaging narrator of Anaïs Nin's Diary has surely earned for herself a place among the great literary creations to appear in this century. Purporting to reveal aspects of her life (and the growth of her sensibilities) in selections from an autobiographical journal, the narrator knows and relates the truth about herself…. The creation and development of this narrator unquestionably attest to the power and skill of Nin, the author, and it is therefore unfortunate that m...

As I write these lines Anaïs Nin has begun the fiftieth volume of her diary, the record of a twenty-year struggle towards self-realization. Still a young woman, she has produced on the side, in the midst of an intensely active life, a monumental confession which when given to the world will take its place beside the revelations of St. Augustine, Petronius, Abelard, Rousseau, Proust, and others…. The diary is full of voyages; in fact, like life itself it might be regarded as nothing but voyage....

In fiction [Anais Nin] tried to do something new, and she saw it as intricately linked with the fact that she was a woman; she was anti-intellectual, relying on feeling, and she was one of those people who believe that 'It is man's separateness, his so-called objectivity, which has made him lose contact…. Woman was born to be the connecting link between man and his human self.'… She wanted also to be a great artist; what is there in her books for people who do not find psy...

"Linotte" is the name [Anaïs Nin] gives herself as she signs letters to her father, Joaquin Nin, the Spanish composer and pianist. It is an old-world term for "finch" or linnet, and traditionally in French it means "scatterbrain," a girl with foolish ideas. Often at the end of a passage, especially one full of conflicts, contradictions and impossible dreams, Anaïs characterizes herself in that way. If she is writing directly to her father, she habitual...

A maternal figure at times, [Nin] encouraged, for example, both Lawrence Durrell and Henry Miller; especially Miller, whom she supported financially for some time as well as encouraging his writing. Many other young writers were helped by her in various ways at various times. Although a wealthy woman by Parisian left-bank standards, she sometimes found herself committed to spending more than she had available. It was on such an occasion that the stories in Delta of Venus were written. The request was made b...

By nature sensitive, introspective, and emotional, this intense and gifted young girl pours out [in Linotte: The Early Diary of Anaïs Nin 1914–1920] the manic-depressive roller-coastering of adolescence in her daily tryst with her one friend, her diary. Arriving in an unfamiliar country, abandoned by the father whose love she craves, she tosses her crystalline, childlike impressions into a whirlpool of blossoming adulthood…. This amazingly precocious diary offers clearsighted evaluation...

Anaïs Nin's diary served as her mirror, her confidant, the only place where she was truly herself and scrupulously honest about even unpleasant truths. For those who are fascinated by every word of this ultimate diarist, [Linotte: The Early Diary of Anaïs Nin, 1914–1920] will no doubt prove an invaluable addition to the adult works, but for those less enamored, it can make uncomfortable reading. Perhaps it should have been left a mirror to oblivion, for its pages read like an unw...

For readers who find it hard to stay with Anais Nin's novels for more than several pages (no, let's be fair: for more than one page), the publication of her collected fiction isn't going to be the major event which Sharon Spencer's introduction would have us suppose. Nin herself described Cities of the Interior as 'an endless novel', and for anyone wading faithfully through 589 pages of such sub-Lawrentian wisdom as 'A breast touched for the first time is a b...