Nabokov's Theatrical Imagination

Drawing on a wealth of unpublished archival material, this study offers a comprehensive assessment of the importance of theatrical performance in Vladimir Nabokov's thinking and writing. Siggy Frank provides fresh insights into Nabokov's wider aesthetics and arrives at new readings of his narrative fiction. As well as emphasising the importance of theatrical performance to our understanding of Nabokov's texts, she demonstrates that the theme of theatricality runs through the central concerns of Nabokov's art and life: the nature of fiction, the relationship between the author and his fictional world, textual origin and derivation, authorial control and textual property, literary appropriations and adaptations, and finally the transformation of the writer himself from the Russian émigré writer Sirin to the American novelist Nabokov.

Reviews & endorsements

'Making exhaustive use of archival sources, Siggy Frank has constructed the most comprehensive study of theatricality in Nabokov's work to date. His plays are brought to life through a detailed exposition of their history and staging, production and reception, which in turn reveals the very particular character of Russian émigré life in the 1920s and 1930s … Perceptive, original and scrupulously researched, this is a book readers will turn to again and again. Siggy Frank has not only made a major contribution to our knowledge and understanding of theatre in Nabokov's work, but also reinstated drama and theatricality as central artistic elements of his creative world.' Barbara Wyllie, Slavonica

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Product details

• Date Published: January 2015
• format: Paperback
• isbn: 9781107479791
• length: 228 pages

• dimensions: 230 x 152 x 18 mm
• weight: 0.34kg
• contains: 1 b/w illus.
• availability: Available