“He could swear he did not look back, could not—by any optical chance, or in any prism—have seen her physically as he walked away; and yet, with dreadful distinction, he retained forever a composite picture of her standing where he left her. The picture—which penetrated him, through an eye in the back of his head, through his vitreous spinal canal, and could never be lived down, never—consisted of a selection and blend of such random images and expressions of hers that had affected him with a pang of intolerable remorse at various moments in the past.”

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About Vladimir Nabokov

Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist

Vladimir Nabokov was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. He wrote under his own name and also used the pen name Vladimir Sirin. He is known for fiction that moves between Russian and English, along with poetry and translation. His interests also reached into entomology, which sat alongside his literary work and shaped the range of his public life.

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Books by Vladimir Nabokov

Lolita

1991

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Pale Fire

1977

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The Real Life of Sebastian Knight

1970

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Speak, Memory

1989

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