“When we remember our former selves, there is always that little figure with its long shadow stopping like an uncertain belated visitor on a lighted threshold at the far end of some impeccably narrowing corridor.”

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.