The second novel in Anaïs Nin’sCities of the Interiorseries,Children of the Albatrossis divided into two sections: “The Sealed Room” focuses on the dancer Djuna and a set of characters, chiefly male, who surround her; “The Café” brings together a cast of characters already familiar to Nin’s readers, but it is their meeting place that is the focal point of the story.
As always, inChildren of the Albatross,Nin’s writing is inseparable from her life. From Djuna’s story, told in “The Sealed Room” through hints and allusions, hazy in their details and chronology, the most important event to emerge is her father’s desertion (as Nin’s father did) when she was sixteen. By rejecting realistic writing for the experience and intuitions she drew from her diary, Nin was able to forge a novelistic style emphasizing free association, spontaneity, and improvisation, a technique that finds its parallel in the jazz music performed at the café where Nin’s characters meet.
This novel, from Anaïs Nin’sCities of the Interiorseries, plays out in two parts: “The Sealed Room” and “The Café.” Nin portrays her characters—many of whom represent Nin herself—with intense psychological depth as she boldly depicts eroticism, homosexuality, and androgyny using richly layered metaphors and her signature diaristic style.
Anaïs Nin(1903–1977) is an iconic literary figure and one of the most notable experimental writers of the twentieth century. As one of the first women to explore female erotica, Nin revealed the inner desires of her characters in a way that made her works a touchstone for later feminist writers. Swallow Press is the premier US publisher of books by and about Nin.
![Children of the Albatross [Paperback]](/itemImage/2/7/8/5/2_5400383.jpg "Children of the Albatross [Paperback]")