Dear Members of International Vladimir Nabokov Society:

Happy New Year to you all and I hope this message finds you well. May 2020 bring us all only happy tidings.

It is the time of year to renew our IVNS memberships. Those of you who joined the Society or renewed your memberships since November 1, 2019, don’t need to do anything. Your memberships are active until the end of December 2020. 

In everyone else’s case, the time has come to renew your membership. Please go to the link below to complete your renewal:

https://thenabokovian.org/become-member

We are pleased to announce that Siggy Frank, from Nottingham University (UK), has just been elected vice-president  of the IVNS by its members. Lara Delage-Toriel, from Strasbourg University (France), is now president of the IVNS. She wishes to thank our outgoing president, Thomas Karshan (East Anglia, UK), for his efficient and levelheaded dedication to the IVNS during his mandate as president.

As we enter a new decade of the 21st century, we hope to continue to promote research on and knowledge of Nabokov's work to the best of our capacities, and gladly welcome suggestions and projects which might support the IVNS's mission. Please don't hesitate to get in touch with us.

Dear Nabokovians,

The Nabokov secondary bibliography is now ready for use. It has been a difficult task importing the old Zembla secondary bibliography, which was up to date to 2009, into the system. This is done, and ready for use, and now we want you both to use the bibliography and to bring it up to the present.

We very much count on our users to correct and augment the bibliography, which is decidedly a work in progress, and, to remain useful, will always be so.

The Annotations to Ada 2-1 are now ready and available here. Enjoy! Thanks as usual to Steve Blackwell for casting an attentive and imaginative editorial eye over this instalment. The Annotations to Ada 43-1 will shortly become available on AdaOnline with hyperlinks and illustrations added.

Brian Boyd 

You probably realize that Think, Write, Speak has published in both the US and the UK, but you may not know that it was named as a Book of the Year in the TLS by William Boyd (no relation) and Zinovny Zinik (ditto). Indeed it was the only English-language work to be chosen by more than one writer; the book of the year list was even headed "Think, Read, Speak." So unless you buy it first yourself, do let Santa know!

Brian Boyd

Nabokov and Berlin
Literaturhaus-Berlin 
June 5-6, 2020

Co-organizers: Luke Parker, Lisa Ryoko Wakamiya

Proposal Deadline: January 5, 2020

This interview with Bernard Pivot, on his extremely popular television booktalk show, Apostrophes, will appear in Nabokov's Think, Write, Speak: Uncollected Essays, Reviews, Interviews, and Letters to the Editor, forthcoming in the next two weeks from Knopf (New York) and Penguin (London), and co-edited by Anastasia Tolstoy and myself. The TLS allowed less than 24 hours to correct proofs and because of the time difference did not get my revisions until too late. I would have changed the introduction (edited by them from mine to the book version) to read:

Maurice Couturier, Nabokov scholar, writer, translator and President of Honour of the Société Française Vladimir Nabokov, ponders the fate of his collection of Nabokoviana:

The Fall 2019 issue of The Nabokovian, edited by Professor Priscilla Meyer, is now posted. The issue showcases contributions by Gavriel Shapiro, Shakeeb Arzoo, and Stephen Blackwell. Please note that access to The Nabokovian is contingent upon being a paying member of the International Vladimir Nabokov Society. IVNS can be joined here.  Recent issues of Notes and Brief commentaries can be found here.

Maurice Couturier, president of honour of the Société Française Vladimir Nabokov, has written a letter to Le Monde on the subject of Nabokov's absence from its list of 100 novels that have excited its critics since 1944. The letter is pasted below:

Un surprenant absent parmi les « 100 meilleurs romans du Monde »

Maurice Couturier

Traducteur et spécialiste de Nabokov, éditeur de ses romans dans la

Bibliothèque de la Pléiade, je m’étonne de ne pas trouver Lolita ou Ada

dans votre classement des 100 romans qui ont « le plus enthousiasmé »

vos critiques depuis 1944, ni même le nom de cet auteur dans la liste

The International Vladimir Nabokov Society wishes to congratulate the winners of the following prizes:

Call for Papers for The Nabokovian

It is my pleasure to announce that Drs. Gerard de Vries and Stanislav Shvabrin have been appointed by the Board of IVNS to serve in the capacity of Associate Editors of The Nabokovian. 

This appointment will enable the site to grow and expand. 

In my capacity of General Editor, I wish to thank Drs. de Vries and Shvabrin for their generous willingness to serve as Associate Editors.

With best wishes to all,

Dana

A "beta" English version of Olga Skonechnaia's voluminous commentary to Invitation to a Beheading is now available (click here to see).  

Dear Adaphiles,

The notes to Ada 1.43 have been added to the Annotations section of the website, which also means the notes to Ada 1.41 are now available (with hyperlinks to motifs and illustrations) on AdaOnline. Thanks once again to Steve Blackwell for acting as editor of the new annotations, kindly continuing the momentum of his role as the last editor of the print Nabokovian.

Dear Readers of The Nabokovian:

The International Vladimir Nabokov Society, the Société française Vladimir Nabokov and the Nabokov Society of Japan make a joint appeal to Russia's Ministry of Culture in three open letters. 

These urgent letters, published at the bottom of this message, were published in an article by Maria Bashmakova in Kommersant. The Ministry's reply to the last letter sent to it by the Vladimir Nabokov Literary Foundation is embedded in this same article. 

On behalf of the organizers of the annual "Nabokov Readings 2019 International Conference /

Набоковские чтения – 2019 Международнaя конференция,"

it is my great pleasure to announce the conference program. The conference takes place from

3-5 July / 3-5 июля 2019.

The Société Française Vladimir Nabokov has hosted yet another magnificent conference, this time at Université Cergy-Pontoise, the Sorbonne, and Musée National de l’Histoire de l’Immigration. Plenary speakers, Isabelle Poulin and Will Norman, delivered fascinating talks on the first two days of the conference and were accompanied by speakers from several generations of Nabokovians. At the Musée National, we listened to a seminal talk on Russian immigration, which disclosed unpublished documents from the Nina Berberova Archives (including letters and notes from Nabokov).

The Societé française de Vladimir Nabokov is pleased to announce its Fourth International Symposium, "Vladimir Nabokov: Histoire et géographie." The Symposium takes place from June 6-8, 2019, at the Université de Cergy-Pontoise, Sorbonne Université, and National Museum of Immigration (Porte Dorée Palace).