Russian-American writer, scholar, translator and lepidopterist. He received an Oscar nomination for the screen adaptation of his greatest novel “Lolita,” which also brought him notoriety and financial independence.
He was the first of five children born to Russian aristocrats Vladimir Dmitrievich and Elena Ivanovna. His father was a prominent and respected liberal politician and his mother a wealthy noble with an artistic heritage. Vladimir learned a strong work ethic and a love of butterflies from his dad, creative sensibility and innate spirituality from his mom. He spent a happy childhood at the Nabokov estate of Vyra 50 miles south of St. Petersburg. Various governesses taught him to read and write French and English, learning these before Russian. The family had multilingual discussions at the dinner table. A slender but active youth, he bicycled, played tennis and soccer. He studied at the most advanced and expensive school in Russia, the Prince Tenishev School in St. Petersburg from 1910-17. Even among its elite students, Vladimir was aloof and even haughty, being driven to school each day in a Rolls-Royce.
In 1916 his uncle bequeathed him about two million dollars and a large estate, reinforcing his independence and enabling him to privately publish a book of poems. Due to the Russian Revolution in November 1917, the family left their home, stayed with friends in the Crimea for 18 months, then fled to England in April 1919 via Constantinople. Vladimir and brother Sergei enrolled in Trinity College, Cambridge. He coasted to graduation with a BA in 1922, easily passing exams aided by his meticulous lecture notes. He completed his best translation of “Alice In Wonderland” into Russian during this time. His dad moved to Berlin, and trying to prevent an assassination, was shot and died in 1922.
Vladimir moved to Berlin and worked at the same Russian language newspaper his father had, composing chess problems and crossword puzzles. He taught English and tennis, published short fiction and poetry, appeared as an extra in films and acted in theatrical productions. His mom moved to Prague where she remained on a government pension until her death in 1939. He moved to Paris in 1937 with his family, where they remained until the Nazi invasion of 1940. Fleeing to New York, he worked for the Museum of Natural History in New York classifying butterflies and in 1945, became a naturalized citizen. His art ability enabled him to write and illustrate several books on lepidoptery. His first publication in English was in 1941. With the help of literary friends, he received jobs in academia. The summer of 1941, Nabokov taught creative writing at Stanford. He became a Russian instructor and resident lecturer in comparative literature at Wellesley College in the fall of 1941 until 1948, then taught at Cornell until 1959.
Nabokov is most widely known for his novel, “Lolita,” the story of a middle aged man besotted with a 12-year old girl, published first in Paris in 1955, then the U.S. in 1958. The controversial novel involved Nabokov in an obscenity court case in 1958, but his financial status was secure and he retired from teaching. Being a lifelong insomniac, he wrote mostly at night. In his autobiography, “Speak Memory” published 1966, he observed that he was a perfectly normal trilingual child in a family with a large library. Never interested in the literature of social comment, Nabokov felt it was only the author’s private satisfaction that counted.
On 4/15/1925 he married fellow émigré Vera Slonim, a Jewess. Their son Damitri was born 5/10/1934. In 1961 they moved to Montreux, Switzerland to be near their son who was studying for a career in opera in Milan.
Nabokov died on 7/02/1977 in Montreux, Switzerland of a mysterious lung ailment. Both Cambridge and Cornell Universities held celebrations of the centennial of Nabokov’s birth during 1998/99. The editorial board of Modern Library Books chose “Lolita” as No.4 on their best 100 novels in English of the 20th century.
Link to Wikipedia biography