Author: vladimirnabokov

For the first time in English, Vladimir Nabokov’s earliest major work, written when he was only twenty-four: his only full-length play, introduced by Thomas Karshan and beautifully translated by Karshan and Anastasia Tolstoy. The Tragedy of Mister Morn was written in the winter of 1923­­–1924, when Nabokov was completely unknown. The five-act play—the story of an incognito king whose love for the … whose love for the wife of a banished revolutionary brings on the chaos the king has fought to prevent—was never published in Nabokov’s lifetime and lay in manuscript until it appeared in a Russian literary journal in…

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The first novel Nabokov wrote while living in America and the most overtly political novel he ever wrote, Bend Sinister is a modern classic.  While it is filled with veiled puns and characteristically delightful wordplay, it is, first and foremost, a haunting and compelling narrative about a civilized man caught in the tyranny of a police state. It is first and foremost a compelling narrative … narrative about a civilized man and his child caught up in the tyranny of a police state.  Professor Adam Krug, the country’s foremost philosopher, offers the only hope of resistance to Paduk, dictator and leader of…

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This “immaculate and disturbing masterpiece” (NPR) explores the repercussions of a man’s shocking obsession. “An authentic work of art… Revealing and indispensable” (San Francisco Chronicle).

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