Our mother (re)born : the fertile treasure of Nin's matrilineality

The importance of motherhood and how each mother must navigate maternity for herself can be unearthed in a sustained, close reading of Anais Nin's diaries. I've specifically engaged with the works of Luce Irigaray and Alison Stone to develop an argument for the significance of Nin's (so-called) "liary," and its importance in creating a uniquely feminine, modernist renewal of maternal roles and discourses. Here, maternity is reconsidered as a crucial site (and key concept) in the textual development of a cultural imaginary that has been previously based on patrilineal trajectories (the prolific father-son stories that we know so well) that encourage a psychic separation from the mother. In addition, maternity can be explored as a defining element of women's identity and self-creation. Moving beyond just self-creation, Nin offered the maternal as a potential solution to discord in relationships between genders, as well as between mothers and daughters. She offered us the possibility of a new world, birthed by her own work.