more photos (1)

Vladimir Nabokov’s Followers (14,981)

Add New
Videos

Vladimir Nabokov discusses "Lolita" part 2 of 2

Add a comment

13 comments

Vladimir Nabokov

Born

in Saint Petersburg, Russian Empire

April 22, 1899

Died

July 02, 1977

Genre

Fiction, Poetry

Influences

edit data

Vladimir Nabokov (Russian: Владимир Набоков) was a writer defined by a life of forced movement and extraordinary linguistic transformation. Born into a wealthy, liberal aristocratic family in St. Petersburg, Russia, he grew up trilingual, speaking Russian, English, and French in a household that nurtured his intellectual curiosities, including a lifelong passion for butterflies. This seemingly idyllic, privileged existence was abruptly shattered by the Bolshevik Revolution, which forced the family into permanent exile in 1919. This early, profound experience of displacement and the loss of a homeland became a central, enduring theme in his subsequent work, fueling his exploration of memory, nostalgia, and the irretrievable past.
The first ph Vladimir Nabokov (Russian: Владимир Набоков) was a writer defined by a life of forced movement and extraordinary linguistic transformation. Born into a wealthy, liberal aristocratic family in St. Petersburg, Russia, he grew up trilingual, speaking Russian, English, and French in a household that nurtured his intellectual curiosities, including a lifelong passion for butterflies. This seemingly idyllic, privileged existence was abruptly shattered by the Bolshevik Revolution, which forced the family into permanent exile in 1919. This early, profound experience of displacement and the loss of a homeland became a central, enduring theme in his subsequent work, fueling his exploration of memory, nostalgia, and the irretrievable past.
The first phase of his literary life began in Europe, primarily in Berlin, where he established himself as a leading voice among the Russian émigré community under the pseudonym "Vladimir Sirin". During this prolific period, he penned nine novels in his native tongue, showcasing a precocious talent for intricate plotting and character study. Works like The Defense explored obsession through the extended metaphor of chess, while Invitation to a Beheading served as a potent, surreal critique of totalitarian absurdity. In 1925, he married Véra Slonim, an intellectual force in her own right, who would become his indispensable partner, editor, translator, and lifelong anchor.
The escalating shadow of Nazism necessitated another, urgent relocation in 1940, this time to the United States. It was here that Nabokov undertook an extraordinary linguistic metamorphosis, making the challenging yet resolute shift from Russian to English as his primary language of expression. He became a U.S. citizen in 1945, solidifying his new life in North America. To support his family, he took on academic positions, first founding the Russian department at Wellesley College, and later serving as a highly regarded professor of Russian and European literature at Cornell University from 1948 to 1959.
During this academic tenure, he also dedicated significant time to his other great passion: lepidoptery. He worked as an unpaid curator of butterflies at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology. His scientific work was far from amateurish; he developed novel taxonomic methods and a groundbreaking, highly debated theory on the migration patterns and phylogeny of the Polyommatus blue butterflies, a hypothesis that modern DNA analysis confirmed decades later.
Nabokov achieved widespread international fame and financial independence with the publication of Lolita in 1955, a novel that was initially met with controversy and censorship battles due to its provocative subject matter concerning a middle-aged literature professor and his obsession with a twelve-year-old girl. The novel's critical and commercial success finally allowed him to leave teaching and academia behind. In 1959, he and Véra moved permanently to the quiet luxury of the Montreux Palace Hotel in Switzerland, where he focused solely on writing, translating his earlier Russian works into meticulous English, and studying local butterflies.
His later English novels, such as Pale Fire (1962), a complex, postmodern narrative structured around a 999-line poem and its delusional commentator, cemented his reputation as a master stylist and a technical genius. His literary style is characterized by intricate wordplay, a profound use of allusion, structural complexity, and an insistence on the artist's total, almost tyrannical, control over their created world. Nabokov often expressed disdain for what he termed "topical trash" and the simplistic interpretations of Freudian psychoanalysis, preferring instead to focus on the power of individual consciousness, the mechanics of memory, and the intricate, often deceptive, interplay between art and perceived "reality". His unique body of work, straddling multiple cultures and languages, continues to ...more

Combine Editions
Vladimir Nabokov’s books

Average rating: 3.88 · 1,768,025 ratings · 91,857 reviews · 893 distinct works • Similar authors

	Lolita 3.87 avg rating — 944,718 ratings — published 1955 — 2 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Pale Fire 4.17 avg rating — 57,536 ratings — published 1962 — 167 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Pnin 3.88 avg rating — 29,378 ratings — published 1957 — 6 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Laughter in the Dark by Vladimir Nabokov, John Banville (Introduction) 4.02 avg rating — 21,538 ratings — published 1932 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Invitation to a Beheading 3.92 avg rating — 19,972 ratings — published 1935 — 5 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Speak, Memory 4.08 avg rating — 17,718 ratings — published 1966	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	The Luzhin Defense 3.94 avg rating — 16,035 ratings — published 1929 — 164 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Ada, or Ardor: A Family Chronicle 4.12 avg rating — 12,978 ratings — published 1969 — 132 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Despair 3.90 avg rating — 11,715 ratings — published 1934 — 4 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars
	Mary 3.71 avg rating — 8,963 ratings — published 1926 — 44 editions	Error rating book. Refresh and try again. Rate this book Clear rating 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

More books by Vladimir Nabokov…

Series by Vladimir Nabokov

Собрание сочинений в 4 томах (4 books)
by

Vladimir Nabokov

4.61 avg rating — 49 ratings

مجموعه داستان‌های کوتاه (3 books)
by

Vladimir Nabokov,

بهمن خسروی (Translator)

4.13 avg rating — 8 ratings

In 2018, young debut author Rebecca F. Kuang earned immediate critical and commercial success with the publication of The Poppy War, a grim and...

Polls

scegliamo la lettura di Febbraio

Meridiano di sangue di Cormac McCarthy

10 votes, 25.6%

Non dite che non abbiamo niente di Madeleine Thien

6 votes, 15.4%

Lo spirito della fantascienza di Roberto Bolaño

6 votes, 15.4%

Fuoco pallido di Vladimir Nabokov

6 votes, 15.4%

Cancellazione di Percival Everett

4 votes, 10.3%

Ghiaccio-nove di Kurt Vonnegut

4 votes, 10.3%

Ma gli androidi sognano pecore elettriche? di Philip K. Dick

3 votes, 7.7%

39 total votes

comments and details

More...

Topics Mentioning This Author

topics	posts	views	last activity
Chicks On Lit: May Nominations	20	422	03 mar. 2009 22:33
The Next Best Boo...: HELLO!!! We have our winners for May!!!	283	962	01 mai 2009 02:02
College Students! : Michelle Kay's 2009 Reads	7	552	07 mai 2009 06:12
College Students! : The Results are IN!	30	434	13 juil. 2009 03:33
The Seasonal Read...: Time to study abroad	52	540	05 sept. 2009 08:27

More…