By Anaïs Nin
Narrated By Sofia Willingham
Length: 1 hr and 10 mins
Release Date: 4-30-2018
Print Publisher: Siana Editions (France,1936)

SUMMARY

Originally published in 1936, this is Anaïs Nin's first work of fiction. But unlike her diaries and erotica, House of Incest does not detail the author's relationships with her famous lovers, nor does it contain graphic depiction of sex. Rather, it is a surrealistic look within the narrator's subconscious mind as she attempts to escape from a dream in which she is trapped, or in Nin's words, as she attempts to escape from "the woman's season in hell." Nin's usage of the word "incest" in this case is metaphorical, not literal. In other words, in this book the word "incest" describes a selfish love where one can appreciate in another only that which is similar to oneself.

HOUSE OF INCEST

PRAISE

“The art of Anais Nin cuts across the traditional literary categories. She combines poetic lyricism with an extended fable, blurring the distinction between poetry and prose. Her writings are presented to us both as separate, self-contained compositions and as part of a continuous work-in-progress; moreover they hover in that contemporary no-man’s land between autobiography and fiction.”

— Philip K. Jason

“While many writers see what is before their eyes, Anais Nin looks into the heart of what confronts her, dissolving barriers, allowing us to participate, through the alchemy of her words, into the depths of the things which surround us and in whose shallows most lives are spent.”

— Wayne McEvilly

2018 Talking Book