AUDIO RECORDING OF BOOK BEAT INTERVIEW

Chicago, 1972. Chicago: 1972. Period reel-to-reel audio recording, preserved in an Ohio State University box, with manuscript titles on the rear panel. Digitized in early 2020 into wav recordings, which are provided on a USB key. The recording is 28 minutes, 37 seconds in length. Nin (1903-77), the French-born diarist and passionate eroticist, is interviewed by Robert Cromie of the Chicago Tribune for the PBS television program Book Beat. In the course of their wide-ranging conversation, which was recorded shortly after the publication of The Diary of Anais Nin, Volume Four, 1944-1947 (1971), she discusses her literary approach: "it's played all kind of the roles, the Diary, you know, it was the story of growth of a woman, it was also a notebook, and many of the characters in the novels I would start taking from reality, from the Diary, and then of course they go through a transformation which fiction always does and they will become composites. So there will be two people in one portrait and they change, but nevertheless the base of it was in truth, in the truth of the Diary, and you can find similarities." Nin also speaks to her complicated relationships with writer Gore Vidal and filmmaker Maya Deren, among others, and the publication of Under a Glass Bell (1944) by her own printing Press, which she named Gemor Press. When asked about Henry Miller's bohemian lifestyle, she recalls, "he was very generous, with everything, with his ideas with his stories, with his life ... he's generous to other writers, too, which is something that we kept from the Paris days, and we never understood when we came to New York, the absence of fraternity. But then of course, the New York scene was different. The French writer never made any money. There was something rather uncommercial about being a writer, and we were always helping each other and inspiring each other and encouraging each other and I miss that. Henry continued to encourage writers and I did, too. Somebody said the history of art is the history of friendship. Should be." She also touches on a number of topical issues, musing on the future of the Diary and sharing her thoughts on feminism: "There's one aspect I'm very much involved in, with the creativity of the woman, the liberation of the woman. There's an aspect which is very militant which I'm not involved with and you know, there are many factions, as you know, it's already divided into many factions. I'm interested in showing the writing of women, their capacities, inspiring them, and the Diaries, of course, have meant a great deal to women because it's unusual to have the story of a woman's growth. We never had a record of that and I was always interested in the growth of plants, I would watch plants grow. I think I love to see the growth of human beings, and I found the only one I could really record scientifically, completely was my own, and I think this became the story of growth for other women: examining the conflicts and the obstacles and watching day by day how you could expand without damaging others, how could you grow without being destructive, and all the problems that a woman has. (Inventory #: 72081)