Sabina: Subject of Jay’s painting; free, impulsive woman attracted to Lillian, whose inexperience and newness Sabina desires. Composite character based on June Miller and the aspect of Nin that sought to emulate her (see Henry & June).

Descriptions in part from Anaïs Nin Character Dictionary by Benjamin Franklin V

PUBLISHING HISTORY

Anaïs Nin self-published the first portion of Seduction of the Minotaur as Solar Barque in 1958 under the imprint of the Anaïs Nin Press, and this volume was the last of five novels (the first four are Ladders to Fire, Children of the Albatross, The Four-Chambered Heart, and A Spy in the House of Love) collected in the original Cities of the Interior, self-published in 1959. Nin felt the urge, however, to expand Solar Barque and added a second section; the complete book was renamed Seduction of the Minotaur and was published by Alan Swallow in 1961. When Swallow Press republished Cities of the Interior in 1974, Solar Barque was replaced by Seduction.

—Paul Herron, Editor

INTRODUCTION

In Seduction of the Minotaur I finally succeeded in absorbing the interpretations, the knowledge, the vision of the analyst with the novelist. The theme is psychoanalytical: the search for the origin of unhappiness in a new country and the problem of being faced with the repetition of patterns and recognizing their inescapable influence unless dissolved by awareness. Lillian makes both journeys, into the past as well as into the present, and becomes aware of their interrelation.

At the beginning of Seduction of the Minotaur, Lillian continues to travel away from the confrontation of her secret self, proceeds on a dynamic double journey. She begins with a troubled inner life and seeks peace from the outer joyousness of Mexico.

Symbolic images were drawn from many sources, Mexican legends as well as the story of how the Egyptians buried their pharaohs with two barks, one to sail after death to the moon and one to sail to the sun. This image was most appropriate for the story of Seduction of the Minotaur. If we did not make the journey on two levels, external and internal, we would not reach wholeness or happiness.

Lillian is only partly real.

She was essentially a woman rushing into acts which did not satisfy or assuage the needs of her inner self. The atmosphere of Mexico was in itself conducive to a slower rhythm, time for reflection, and the people seems to live in greater harmony with nature and with themselves.