Vladimir Nabokov
(1899–1977)

Born in St. Petersburg, Russia in 1899, Vladimir Nabokov was the eldest of five children born to a life of wealth and privilege. His father, Vladimir Dmitrievich Nabokov, was a respected liberal politician. In 1917, Tsar Nicholas II abdicated his thrown to the Bolsheviks, members of what would later be known as the Communist Party. The elder Nabokov, opposed to the Bolshevik government that came to power, moved his family to Berlin, Germany. The family eventually settled in England, where young Vladimir attended Cambridge University. Upon graduating in 1922, Nabokov returned to his family in Berlin, following the murder of his father by a political assassin.

Nabokov lived in both France and Germany until 1940, when he immigrated with his wife and son to the United States. He became a US citizen in 1945. Nabokov spent the next 20 years of his life in the United States where he wrote novels, plays, poetry, and non-fiction in English. He also lectured at a number of universities, including Harvard.

In 1961, seeking solitude, Nabokov and his wife moved to Montreux, Switzerland. For the next 17 years, Nabokov published several novels, including Pale Fire (1962) and Ada (1969). He died in 1977.

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