“Perhaps what matters is not the human pain or joy at all but, rather, the play of shadow and light on a live body, the harmony of trifles assembled...in a unique and inimitable way.”

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.