Under the Sign of Pisces --
The Original Cafe in Space

Anais Nin was born Under the Sign of Pisces, February 21, 1903 in Neuilly-sur Seine, a suburb of Paris. Her birth name Angela Anais Juana Antolina Rosa Edelmin Nin y Culmell reflects her heritage; a French born naturalized American of Cuban, Danish and Spanish ancestry.

"An especially important pioneering contribution to Nin criticism and general interest is the newsletter/journal Under the Sign of Pisces: Anais Nin and her Circle and it's successor Seahorse: The Anais Nin/Henry Miller Journal. As Jason states, both were "masterminded" by Richard R. Centing at the Ohio State University Libraries. These publications have been invaluable as networking tools for persons who were and are studying Nin's writings, or who have been interested in following and advancing her career. Pisces, the "Cafe in Space" as Anais called it, was active for twelve years. Its issues contain manyh primary sources, including perviously unpublished materials by Anais. Centing's contribution to Nin studies is extremely valuable"
- Sharon Spencer Forever Anais

Under the Sign of Pisces: Anais Nin and Her Circle.
Richard R. Centing

It seems unlikely, now, after-the-fact, that I will ever be able to recompose - out of memories and notes - the total structure of a relationship that was vital to my personal development.

I knew her for ten years, 1967-1977. We saw each other all too infrequently from my viewpoint, sometimes at her home, sometimes in a lecture hall. Most of the time we communicated by telephone and letter. I was enriched - not only by her art, which is what drew me to her - but by her power of entrancement, her presence, which brought together so beautifully loveliness of spirit and profundity of purpose.

Her keen, unselfish interest in other was exhibited to me when she came to my assistance during a crucial time in my professional career. Anais contributed a letter of recommendation to The Ohio State University Libraries when I applied for a faculty position in 1968, was a well-regarded recommendation which helped me secure a position which I needed and desired. This was before the creation of the Nin newsletter.

Later, when I was awarded tenure at OSU in 1976, the benefit derived from my continuing editorship of the Nin newsletter, and generation of other Nin-related scholarship and lectures, was a good-sized factor in the granting of tenure promotion. These mundane facts are worth mentioning for the record because it seems to me that literary history will probably ignore such pedestrian practicalities, and psychohistorians seek the more exotic manifestations of early trauma. A grateful librarian, however, wishes to publically acknowledge his simple thanks for these unheralded gestures.
-from "Networks: Anais Nin" edited by Rochelle Lynn Holt © 1978 Ragnorok Press