As the Soviets forged ahead to modern and socialist art, Russian exiles in Paris and Berlin looked to young artists — like Vladimir Nabokov — to continue in the Russian tradition. Nabokov, whose father was a prominent politician in the short-lived Russian Republic, did begin his writing career in Russian émigré journals and publishing houses, but his eventual success came from the English-language and Hollywood-adapted masterpiece, Lolita (1955).

In part one of the conversation, Amherst's Visiting Assistant Professor Luke Parker goes through Nabokov’s “westernized” childhood and exile in Berlin to show that his career was multilingual and transnational throughout his life. Neither neglectful of nor limited to Russian language and readership, Nabokov’s work sheds light on important questions about emigrant (vs. immigrant) identity, how Russia fits in the West, and the cross-cultural possibilities in translation, adaptation, and multilingual literature.

Episode notes and further reading: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EwD8MYGF8ZmrtQ3K2BmJJMV2tJu5Wli6zWPSreT5luM/edit?usp=sharing

Politics and Play: Prof. Christopher Grobe

Office HoursBy The Amherst StudentOct 05, 2022