Vladimir Nabokov

His engagement to Svetlana Siewert broke in early 1923, as her parents worried that he could not provide for her.

He married Vera Evseyevna Sloniminl in 1925; their son, Dmitri, was born eleven years later.

He died in Montreux, in 1977 due to severe bronchial congestion. His remains were cremated and buried at the Clarens Cemetery.

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was born to Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov and Elena Ivanovna. His family was of minor nobility and the author enjoyed a near-perfect, privileged childhood. He was the eldest of five children and was trilingual from an early age. He spoke Russian, English and French.

After the family lost its estate to the October Revolution in 1917, the family fled to Crimea, Livadiya, Western Europe and settled briefly in England.

Over there, the author enrolled in Trinity College, Cambridge to study Zoology but changed courses to Slavic and Romance languages.

In 1920, the family moved to Berlin, but after his father’s assassination in 1922, Nabokov’s mother and sister moved to Prague. He however, stayed in Berlin earning a living out of writing, teaching languages and by giving tennis and boxing lessons.

The author’s earliest works include volumes of poetry, such as ‘Stikhi’ (which was published much later), ‘Al'manakh: DvaPuti’, ‘Grozd Gornii Put’, ‘Vozvrashchenie Chorba’, etc., were published under the pseudonym, ‘Vladimir Sirin’. ‘Mashen'ka’ and ‘Korol' Dama Valet’ are two of the important novels he wrote during this time.

In the 1930s, he wrote ‘Zashchita Luzhina’, ‘Kamera Obskura’, ‘Otchayanie’, ‘Priglasheniyenakazn’; ‘Vozvrashchenie Chorba’ and ‘Sogliadatai’ (collections of short stories and poems), and the play ‘Izobretenie Val'sa’.

In 1937, he moved to France from Germany and settled in France. But in 1940 as France was about to fall to Germany during the World War II, the Nabokov family fled to the United States and settled in Manhattan.

He began volunteer work as an entomologist at the ‘American Museum of Natural History’ where he met Edmund Wilson who introduced Nabokov's work to American editors.

The controversial ‘Lolita’, written in 1955, spawned two film adaptations, one musical, four stage-plays, one completed opera and two ballets. It was also listed on Time’s list of ‘100 best English-language novels from 1923 to 2005’ and ‘100 Best Novels of the 20th Century and 100 Best Books of All Time’. This is largely regarded as his literary masterpiece.