Vladimir Nabokov

Russian-American · 1899–1977

Vladimir Nabokov was a Russian-American novelist and literary critic whose intricate, multilayered prose style made him one of the most distinctive voices of the twentieth century. Born in St Petersburg, he wrote first in Russian before emigrating to the United States and producing his most celebrated English-language works, including Lolita (1955) and Pale Fire (1962). His fiction is characterised by elaborate wordplay, unreliable narrators, concealed structural games, and a delight in trapping attentive readers with hidden meanings — qualities that led him, like Borges, to publicly downplay the depths he built into his own work. A lifelong lepidopterist, he made serious contributions to butterfly taxonomy alongside his literary career.

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