Foreign publishers for The Secret History; more grim news out of St. Petersburg
On the “exciting news” front, The Secret History is now slated for publication in Russia and Poland. Russian house Sindbad Publishers Limited and Polish publisher Muza will be translating and printing the book in their respective countries. I’m particularly grateful that publishers in places so profoundly bound up with Holocaust and Gulag tragedy are interested in Nabokov’s […]
Nabokov Museum in St. Petersburg attacked by vandals
Several news outlets are reporting that a group calling itself the “St. Petersburg Cossacks” may be responsible for vandalism that broke a window of the Nabokov Museum in St. Petersburg. A note inside a bottle found in the museum warned the staff of “God’s wrath.” Some conservative Russians see Lolita as propaganda for pedophilia and […]
Madness, intimate violence, and Stalin’s Barber
Love him or hate him for it, but Nabokov excels at depicting the exquisite intimacy of violence and the deliberate way one person exerts power over another. (For those who have read Nabokov’s most famous book, just recall Humbert Humbert erasing Lolita’s humanity as he recounts his appalling behavior in the novel’s sofa scene.) A […]
Why we need a Secret History of Vladimir Nabokov
Why focus on Nabokov? And why now? These are questions I’ve been asked by everyone from prospective publishers to strangers who have heard I’m writing a book. Because there was no shortage of drama in his life, stories about Nabokov have endless potential. He fled the aftermath of the Russian Revolution with Bolsheviks firing machine […]
