The first draft of Priglashenie na kazn´ [Invitation to a Beheading] was completed (by Nabokov, writing under the name of “V. Sirin”) in June 1934, in what its author described as a “fortnight of wonderful excitement and sustained inspiration”. The novel was a considerable departure for Nabokov, both in content and in style. Its political focus prefigured the English novel Bend Sinister (1947), and Russian stories such as Oblako, ozero, bashnia [Cloud, Castle, Lake, 1937] and Istreblenie tiranov [Tyrants Destroyed, 1938]. Critics have commented on its similarity to Kafka’s The Trial (1925), but it is also reminiscent of Zamiatin’s grim science-f

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Published 09 December 2004

Citation: Wyllie, Barbara. "Priglashenie na kazn’ [Invitation to a Beheading]". The Literary Encyclopedia. 9 December 2004.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=2576, accessed 9 February 2010.]