Angela Anaïs Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmira Nin y Culmell, known as Anaïs Nin, was a French-born American diarist, essayist, novelist, and writer of short stories and erotica. Born to Cuban parents in France, Nin spent her early years in Spain and Cuba, about sixteen years in Paris (1924–1940), and the remainder of her life in the United States, where she established herself as an author.

Nin wrote journals prolifically from age eleven until her death, detailing her private thoughts and personal relationships. Her journals, many of which were published during her lifetime, describe her marriages to Hugh Parker Guiler and Rupert Pole, as well as her numerous affairs, including those with psychoanalyst Otto Rank and writer Henry Miller, both of whom profoundly influenced Nin and her writing. In addition to her journals, Nin wrote several novels, critical studies, essays, short stories, and volumes of erotica, including Delta of Venus and Little Birds, much of which was published posthumously amid renewed critical interest in her life and work. Nin was a finalist for the Neustadt International Prize for Literature in 1976 and spent her later life in Los Angeles, California, where she died of cervical cancer.