Anaïs Nin: A Sea of Lies

by Léonie Bischoff, Jenna Allen (Translator)

Overview

In lithe, sensuous colored pencils, this international prize-winning, impressionistic graphic biography traces the life, the affairs, and the artistic process of Anaïs Nin, one of the best-known authors of women’s erotica in the 1920s and ‘30s.

Anaïs Nin, the author of works such as Delta of Venus and House of Incest, is the patron saint of taboo-breaking pop culture sexual iconoclasts. Not only is she an inspiration for contemporary figures such as Madonna, but her oeuvre, which encompasses erotica, autobiography, essays, short fiction, novels, and much more, has been adapted into film (Henry and June), television (Little Birds), and other media.

The cartoonist Léonie Bischoff traces the life of the prolific writer in this lushly colored graphic novel. It begins with Nin struggling to reconcile the man she married (who had artistic aspirations) with the banker she finds herself living with in the Parisian suburbs. Soon, her obsession with June Miller leads to inspiration. Nin's life and art, the truth and fiction, are further intertwined as she recounts her many sexual liaisons including those with Henry Miller (whom she and her husband subsidize so he can write the controversial Tropic of Cancer), her psychoanalysts, and even her father. Although Bischoff’s drawing is largely representational, she occasionally depicts Nin’s sexual experiences in scenes as surreal as Nin’s own written portrayal of them.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781683967590
Publisher:	Fantagraphics Books
Publication date:	06/06/2023
Pages:	200
Sales rank:	435,224
Product dimensions:	8.40(w) x 11.10(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Swiss cartoonist Léonie Bischoff received a diploma in comics from the Saint-Luc Institute in Brussels, where she still lives. Anaïs Nin: A Sea of Lies, her 2020 graphic biography, won the Audience Favorite prize at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. Other works include Hoodoo Darlin’, Princess Suplex, and more. She is a member of the Comics Creators Against Sexism Collective.


Jenna Allen is a freelance translator based in Colorado.

Editorial Reviews

★ 06/05/2023

Angoulême audience award winner Bischoff’s English-language debut is an exhilarating if sometimes disturbing graphic biography of writer and artist Anaïs Nin (1903–1977). “My lies are protective, life-giving,” says Nin, whose deceptions include affairs, clandestine meetings, and a secret diary full of explicit erotic fantasies. While married to the loving but naive Hugo Guiler, Nin begins to explore different sides of herself, including the obedient wife, the sexual taboo-breaker, and the passionate devotee of sensuality. After obsessive affairs with the novelist Henry Miller, several psychotherapists, and even (unsettlingly) with family members, Nin vows to reject conventions to “write like a woman” and instead “express the inexpressible.” Bischoff is careful to not reduce Nin to her liaisons, which are drawn across a romantic, curlicue depiction of 1930s Paris, but instead delves into how her sexual exploration helps free her as a writer. Bischoff’s combination of charcoal and rainbow color palettes echo Nin’s double life, while the immersive splash pages blend reality and fantasy. The stunning visuals elevate the titillating but respectful narrative. It’s a nuanced, gorgeously drawn portrait of a beautifully complicated figure. (June)

Publishers Weekly

"Using breath-taking colored pencils, this prize-winning biography traces the life of Anaïs Nin, as her sexual liaisons and a building obsession with passion increasingly influence her writing."

ALA - 2023 Best Graphic Novels Reading List for Adults

"A striking portrait of this chameleon-like woman with light and elegant lines."

Telerama

"[This] beautiful and supple new graphic novel... is a gorgeous work of art. The work is flowing and expresses the femininity of Nin and are stunning interpretations of Nin’s inner and outer life."

Cinema Sentries

"With its swirling lines and volcanic emotions, Bischoff's sumptuously drawn book echoes the oceanic style Nin used to render the chaos of her inner life."

Star Tribune

"A seven-years-in-the-making, no-holds-barred story of Nin’s adventures and quest for personal freedom."

Mediapart

"The writer’s exploration of her sensual inner life — 'few know how many women live inside of me,' she says — is gorgeously rendered by Bischoff in rich, undulating, jewel-toned color pencil illustrations."

The New York Times

"Bischoff vividly dramatizes the psyche and the fantasies of Nin, rendering superb graphic metaphors in stunning colors."

Les Inrocks

"In this gorgeously illustrated graphic biography... Bischoff sets a high standard by brilliantly capturing Nin’s creation of herself as an artist. She not only whets the appetite of anyone who wants to delve further into Nin’s work, but her pages also shimmer with the artistic abandon Nin sought in her own work."

World Literature Today

"An astonishingly beautiful book. Bischoff’s pages are elegant, especially in their eroticism, which is as frank as it is flowered. But even the smaller details dazzle: Clouds gather in the sky like marvelous plaits of hair, and Nin’s coiffure sometimes rises like heavens."

Washington Post

"Distilling a calculated sensuality, Léonie Bischoff delivers a formative novel, at once joyful and disturbing."

Livre Hebdo

★ 2023-03-21
A full-color illumination of the intersection between the renowned writer’s creativity and sexuality.

In her latest book, which serves as a kind of psychobiography, Brussels-based Swiss cartoonist Bischoff captures both the inner and outer lives of her fascinating subject Anaïs Nin (1903-1977). The narrative opens with Nin’s stifling marriage to a banker with his own creative aspirations, a tolerant man who was unable to help his wife unleash the sexuality she knew was within her. In the text, Nin often describes herself as “innocent,” and the combination of art and text reflects that side of her—the initiate, the explorer—while a second voice inside her, perhaps the voice of her diaries, urges her to be true to herself. “On the surface, I am calm and secure,” she says. “But few know how many women live inside me.” During the course of Bischoff’s chronicle, Nin encounters a kindred spirit in Henry Miller and becomes even more deeply enraptured by his wife, June. However, it’s clear that Miller wants to edit Nin’s work to make it more conventional, to have her, she fears, write like a man. Later, a psychiatrist tries to help her with her tumultuous emotional journey while also succumbing to her seductive lure. Then she travels further into forbidden territory with her cousin. Throughout, the illustrations are graphic and sensual without being pornographic. They are at their most powerful when they address Nin’s stormy inner life. As she becomes consumed by her dedication to a very daring sort of artistic truth, she defies the conventions of monogamy, heterosexuality, and domesticity. Bischoff effectively demonstrates how Nin splits into different incarnations with the different people who enrapture her and discovers a way to turn her personal truths into celebrated art: “I will make of my life a masterpiece and invent a language to tell it.”

A dazzling portrait of a complicated writer.

Kirkus Reviews