Books like Nabokov by Leona Toker

Lolita tells the story of an English professor, Humbert Humbert, who becomes obsessed with his 12‑year‑old stepdaughter, Dolores Haze, nicknamed "Lolita," and the disturbing consequences of their relationship.

A reflective memoir by Vladimir Nabokov, compiling essays written from 1936 to 1951 that trace his life and literary journey, first published in 1951 and expanded in a 1966 edition.

"In The Art of Memory in Exile, Hana Pichova explores the themes of memory and exile in selected novels of Vladimir Nabokov and Milan Kundera. Both writers, Pichova argues, stress how personal and cultural memory serves as a creative means of overcoming the artist's and exile's loss of homeland. In their virtuoso displays of literary talent, Nabokov and Kundera showcase the strategies that allow their protagonists to succeed as emigres: a creative fusing of past and present through the prism of the imagination.". "Pichova closely analyzes two novels by each author: the first written in exile (Nabokov's Mary and Kundera's The Book of Laughter and Forgetting) and a later, pivotal novel in each writer's career (Nabokov's The Gift and Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being). In all four texts, these authors explore how the kaleidoscope of personal and cultural memory confronts a fragmented and untenable present, contrasting the lives of fictional emigres who fail to bridge the gap between past and present with those emigres whose rich artistic vision allows them to transcend the trials of homelessness."--BOOK JACKET.