Vladimir Nabokov

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was born on April 23, 1899, in Saint Petersburg, Russia, into an aristocratic family. He fled Russia during the Bolshevik Revolution and spent his early years in exile in Berlin and Paris before settling in America in 1940. Nabokov was a polyglot who wrote in Russian, English, French, and German, eventually establishing himself as a major English-language novelist despite beginning his literary career in Russian. His masterpiece 'Lolita' (1955) shocked the literary world with its controversial subject matter and unreliable narrator, yet is now widely recognized as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century. Nabokov's works are characterized by elaborate narrative structures, punning wordplay, chess-like plotting, and intense attention to linguistic detail. Beyond fiction, he was also a celebrated lepidopterist (butterfly expert) and chess composer. His autobiography 'Speak, Memory' is considered a masterwork of the form. Nabokov's influence on postmodern literature is immense, inspiring generations of writers to experiment with form and language. He died in Montreux, Switzerland on July 2, 1977, leaving behind a legacy as one of literature's greatest stylists.