Publisher's Synopsis
A "Choice Magazine" outstanding academic book. A century after his birth, Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) remains controversial, provocative, and "cool." Yet while he receives acclaim as a major American writer, few of his admirers in the West know the unique place he occupies in his native Russian tradition. In this captivating interpretation of Nabokov's career through the prism of his short fiction, Maxim D. Shrayer explores how Nabokov eclipsed the achievements of the great Russian masters of the short story, Anton Chekhov and Ivan Bunin, with whom he maintained a dialogic relationship even as he became - in exile from Russia and his native tradition - an American writer. A native of Moscow and naturalized U.S. citizen, Maxim D. Shrayer is the author of three collections of verse and of Russian Poet/Soviet Jew. He teaches literature at Boston College.
