Figurations of Exile in Hitchcock and Nabokov

This comparative study of Alfred Hitchcock and Vladimir Nabokov opens up their work to issues of exile and migration. Questions about the contingencies of history and the rupture of the real are rarely brought to bear on these self-reflexive texts. Barbara Straumann responds to this critical gap by reading real-life exile as the "absent cause" of Hitchcock and Na

This comparative study of Alfred Hitchcock and Vladimir Nabokov opens up their work to issues of exile and migration. Questions about the contingencies of history and the rupture of the real are rarely brought to bear on these self-reflexive texts. Barbara Straumann responds to this critical gap by reading real-life exile as the "absent cause" of Hitchcock and Nabokov's brilliant virtuosity. Her "cross-mapping" of the two seemingly disparate authors takes as its point of departure the conditions of exile in which they found themselves and shows how the relentless playfulness of their language and irony creates a new home in the world of signs.

Straumann closely reads "Speak, Memory," "Lolita," "The Real Life of Sebastian Knight," "Suspicion," "North by Northwest," and "Shadow of a Doubt," exploring the connections between language, imagination, and exile. The book will appeal to those interested in Nabokov, Hitchcock, Freud, Lacan, cultural theory, media, and exile.