Vladimir Nabokov, Bend Sinister

William Norman (University of Kent at Canterbury)

Ed. by Neil Cornwell, University of Bristol
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 2.2.2.00: Post-1917 Writing and Culture in Russia, Ukraine and Belarus, 1917-present.
Vol. editors: Neil Cornwell (University of Bristol), Roman Koropeckyj (University of California, Los Angeles), Andrei Rogatchevski (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1947

Places

Russia (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

Related Groups

Dystopian and Apocalyptic Fiction

Bend Sinister was the first novel Nabokov wrote after his flight from Europe to the USA in 1941. During his first six years in America he taught Russian literature in several universities, researched butterflies at Harvard, composed the critical biography Nikolai Gogol (1944), wrote reviews for New Republic and The New York Times, and worked on his novel. Its publication in 1947, five years after he optimistically told his editor “it will be ready for you in three or four months”, was a greeted with relief by its exhausted author.

Bend Sinister reflects its troubled gestation. On the one hand it is a dystopian novel bearing comparison with Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (…

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1998 words

Citation: Norman, William. "Bend Sinister". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 June 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6378, accessed 07 February 2023.]

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