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Cover of Despair by Vladimir Nabokov

Despair

Vladimir Nabokov

  • 217 pages · about 4 hours
  • First published 1934
  • 40 editions
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1 About this book

Despair (Russian: Отчаяние, or Otchayanie) is the seventh novel by Vladimir Nabokov, originally published in Russian, serially in the politicized literary journal Sovremennye zapiski during 1934. It was then published as a book in 1936, and translated to English by the author in 1937.

Most copies of the 1937 English edition were destroyed by German bombs during World War II; only a few copies remain. Nabokov published a second English translation in 1965; this is now the only English translation in print.

Summary adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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2 About Vladimir Nabokov

1899–1977

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (Russian: Влади́мир Влади́мирович Набо́ков ; 22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1899 – 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (Владимир Сирин), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian (1926–1938) while living in Berlin, where he met his wife, Véra Nabokov (née Slonim).

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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