In Memory of L. I. Shigaev

by Vladimir Nabokov

Nabokov returns for his subject to the Dostoyevskian figure of the neurotic petty-bourgeois. Viktor works in an émigré publishing house but is sacked for persistent lateness. He goes to pieces, takes to drink, and begins to have hallucinations of ugly creatures crawling around him in the squalid room he rents.

Genres: Short Stories

12 pages, Unknown Binding

Published April 1, 1934

About the author

Russian: Владимир Набоков .

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin, was a Russian-American novelist. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist. He also made significant contributions to lepidoptery, and had a big interest in chess problems.

Nabokov's Lolita (1955) is frequently cited as his most important novel, and is at any rate his most widely known one, exhibiting the love of intricate wordplay and descriptive detail that characterized all his works.

Lolita was ranked fourth in the list of the Modern Library 100 Best Novels; Pale Fire (1962) was ranked 53rd on the same list, and his memoir, Speak, Memory (1951), was listed eighth on the publisher's list of the 20th century's greatest nonfiction. He was also a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction seven times.