Vladimir Nabokov

About

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) was a Russian-born novelist, poet, translator, and literary scholar whose extraordinary command of language made him one of the most distinctive writers of the twentieth century. Born into an affluent family in St. Petersburg, he left Russia following the Bolshevik Revolution and lived in Europe before emigrating to the United States in 1940. He initially wrote fiction in Russian, later becoming equally celebrated for his English-language novels. His best-known works include Lolita (1955), Pnin (1957), Pale Fire (1962), and Ada, or Ardor (1969). Beyond literature, Nabokov was a passionate lepidopterist—a specialist in butterflies—and taught at Wellesley College and Cornell University. His fiction is renowned for its intricate wordplay, unreliable narrators, elaborate patterns, and explorations of memory, exile, art, and obsession. He spent his final years in Montreux, Switzerland.