About Vladimir Nabokov: Salary, Measurements, Parents, Relationship

Known for movies

Short Info

Died	July 2, 1977, Montreux, Switzerland
Spouse	Véra Nabokov
Fact	Mentioned in the song 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' by 'The Police'.

Vladimir Nabokov was born on April 23, 1899, in St. Petersburg, Russia. His father, Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov, was a prominent lawyer and his mother, Elena Ivanovna Nabokova, was a wealthy socialite. Nabokov had two older brothers, Sergey and Kirill. He was educated at home by tutors and his parents were very strict with him. Nabokov was an excellent student and he excelled in languages, literature, and music. He attended the elite St. Petersburg Lyceum and then the University of St. Petersburg, where he studied French and Russian literature.

Nabokov’s literary career began in the 1920s, when he published several poems and stories in Russian journals. He also wrote plays and worked as a journalist. In 1925, Nabokov married Vera Slonim, a Jewish woman from a wealthy family. The couple had a son, Dmitri, in 1934.

In 1940, Nabokov and his family immigrated to the United States. He taught Russian and comparative literature at Wellesley College and Cornell University. Nabokov’s first novel in English, The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, was published in 1941. His most famous work, Lolita, was published in 1955.

Nabokov was a prolific writer and he also wrote several works of non-fiction, including an autobiography and a book on lepidopterology. He died of heart failure on July 2, 1977, in Montreux, Switzerland.

Nabokov was a highly respected writer during his lifetime and his works have been translated into many languages. Lolita is considered to be one of the greatest novels of the 20th century. Nabokov’s net worth at the time of his death was estimated to be $5 million.

Colloque/Conference/Симпозиум
31 mai 2018
14h-16h À la croisée des identités : le cas Nabokov
2. Julie Loison-Charles/Жюли Луазон-Шарль… https://t.co/EHmuonMoFy
— Chercheurs Enchantés (@CherchEnchantes) April 30, 2018

General Info

Died	July 2, 1977, Montreux, Switzerland
Profession	Teacher, Author, Lepidopterist, Novelist, Screenwriter
Education	Trinity College, Cambridge, University of Cambridge

Family

Spouse	Véra Nabokov
Children	Dmitri Nabokov
Parents	Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov, Elena Ivanovna Nabokova
Siblings	Sergey Nabokov, Kirill Nabokov, Olga Nabokov, Elena Nabokov

Accomplishments

Awards	Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, US & Canada
Nominations	Academy Award for Best Writing Adapted Screenplay, National Book Award for Fiction
Movies	The Luzhin Defence, Maschenka, Despair, King, Queen, Knave, Laughter in the Dark, Lolita, Razor, Der Schmetterlingsjäger - 37 Karteikarten Zu Nabokov

Social profile links

IMDB	http://imdb.com/name/nm0618603

Quotes

#	Quote
1	For me a work of fiction exists only insofar as it affords me what I shall bluntly call aesthetic bliss, that is a sense of being somehow, somewhere connected with other states of being where art - curiosity, tenderness, kindness, ecstasy - is the norm. There are not many such books. All the rest are topical trash or what some might call the Literature of Ideas, which very often is topical trash.
2	[about criticism of his novel "Lolita"] What bothered me most was the belief that "Lolita" was a criticism of America. I think that's ridiculous. I don't see how anybody could find that in "Lolita". I don't like people who see the book as an erotic phenomenon, either. Even more, I suppose, I don't like people who haven't read "Lolita" and think it is obscene.
3	[about the US] It is my country. The intellectual life suits me better there than in any other country in the world. I have more friends there, more kindred souls than anywhere.
4	I have never been interested in what is called the literature of social comment (in journalistic and commercial parlance: "great books"). I am not "sincere", I am not "provocative", I am not "satirical" . . . the future of mankind, and so on, leave me completely indifferent.
5	Life is a great surprise. I do not see why death should not be an even greater one.
6	The verbal poetic texture of [William Shakespeare] is the greatest the world has known, and is immensely superior to the structure of his plays as plays. With Shakespeare it is the metaphor that is the thing, not the play.
7	Every dimension presupposes a medium within which it can act, and if, in the spiral unwinding of things, space warps into something akin to time, and time, in its turn, warps into something akin to thought, then surely another dimension follows - a special Space maybe, not the old one, we trust, unless spirals become vicious circles again.
8	Many accepted authors simply do not exist for me. Bertolt Brecht, William Faulkner, Albert Camus, many others, mean absolutely nothing to me. I must fight a suspicion of conspiracy against my brain when I blandly see accepted as 'great literature' by critics and fellow authors Lady Chatterley's copulations or the pretentious nonsense of Mr. Ezra Pound, that total fake.
9	[in "Speak Memory", his autobiography] But in England, at least in the England of my youth, the national dread of showing off and a too grim preoccupation with solid teamwork were not conducive to the development of the goalkeeper's art.

Facts

#	Fact
1	Mentioned in the song 'Don't Stand So Close To Me' by 'The Police'.
2	Taught at Harvard University during the 1940s.
3	Donated his massive collections of rare butterflies to Harvard University and to Zoology Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland.
4	His father, a Russian diplomat who participated in the 1917 revolution but was not a Communist, was assassinated in Berlin in 1922 by a Russian fascist.
5	Father of Dimitri Nabokov. Cousin to Nicolas Nabokov.
6	He was born under the Julian calendar on April 10, 1899. At the time this would have been April 22 by the Gregorian calendar, and this is often quoted as his birthday. But Russia remained on the Julian calendar until 1918, by which time the Gregorian date equivalent to April 10 had shifted to April 23 -- the date that Nabokov actually celebrated. Nabokov was pleased that this change allowed him to share a birthday with William Shakespeare.

Movies

Writer

Title	Year	Status
Despair	2014	Short novel
Symbols and Signs	2013	Short
Sobytie	2009	novel
Nabokov, Mashenka	2001	TV Movie novel Mary - uncredited
The Luzhin Defence	2000	novel "Zashchita Luzhina"
A Nursery Tale	1999	Short story
Lurjus	1999	short story "Podlets"
Lolita	1997	novel "Lolita"
Mademoiselle O	1994	TV Movie short story
Mashenka	1991	TV Movie novel
Maschenka	1987	novel "Mashen'ka"
Laughter in the Dark	1986	novel
Despair	1978	novel "Otchayaniye"
Einladung zur Enthauptung	1973	TV Movie novel "Priglasheniye na kazn'"
King, Queen, Knave	1972	novel "Korol', dama, valet"
Das Bastardzeichen	1970	TV Movie novel
Laughter in the Dark	1969	novel
Lolita	1962	novel "Lolita" / screenplay