Isabella Trimboli is a critic, essayist and editor. Her writing on film, literature and art has appeared in publications such as Metrograph Journal, Sydney Review of Books, The Saturday Paper, The Monthly, Art Guide and The Guardian. She lives in Melbourne.
THE IMAGE HAS VAGUE PROVENANCE, circulating on corners of the internet that sever history and source. All we have is a caption, parroted across platforms: ‘Anaïs Nin with her diaries in a bank vault, c. 1950.’ If the time-stamp is correct, this was around when Anaïs was writing erotica for a dollar per page, and self-publishing experimental novels that were met with disdain, if receiving any response at all. She was spending more time in California, at the behest of Henry Miller, and would appear in Kenneth Anger’s bacchanalia…