Vladimir Nabokov

The novel is presented as the extensive, richly detailed memoir of Van Veen, who chronicles his lifelong, passionate, and forbidden love for his sister, Ada. The story is set on an alternate planet called Antiterra in the 19th century, where Russia, America, and France have somehow merged into one geopolitical space. Van and Ada first […]

Meet Timofey Pavlovich Pnin, a Russian émigré, professor of Russian literature at the quaint American Waindell College, and one of the most endearing and hapless figures in 20th-century fiction. Pnin is a true intellectual of the old school—erudite, meticulous, and agonizingly vulnerable—but hopelessly clumsy when navigating the chaos of American life, from mastering the English […]