This video from "Close Up", a CBC programme from the 1950s, shows Nabokov discussing his classic novel
Lolita in a relaxed, civilised fashion that seems somewhat anathema to the format of contemporary chat shows.
Last winter saw the publication of Nabokov's unfinished final novel
The Original of Laura, after his son, Dmitri, decided to publish it against the late novelist's wishes. Literary agent Andrew Wylie, who is in charge of Nabokov's estate, was also persuaded to allow
Playboy to publish extracts from the book prior to publication, on the grounds that it was a magazine to which Nabokov had himself been a contributor.
Penguin, who published
The Original of Laura, have also just reissued paperback editions of Nabokov's satirical novels, including
Pnin and
Invitation to a Beheading. Just last month in the
New Statesman, Lesley Chamberlain reviewed a new book by Michael Maar called
Speak, Nabokov, which "deciphers the word games and patterns that permeate Nabokov's novels in order to throw light on the author's life", which you can read
here.
One of Nabokov's two interviewers is the literary critic Lionel Trilling, whose own writing is discussed by Leo Robson in this week's magazine.
