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).

Dear Friends of Nabokov:

On behalf of Nabokovians worldwide, happy birthday dear Vladimir Nabokov! 

With Zoran Kuzmanovich's permission, I post these birthday greetings for everyone to enjoy, including perhaps Nabokov himself (wherever he might be perched himself):

Happy Birthday to the man whose work makes us attend to  the stained glass windows of life while we wait for the right word not only to perch itself on our keyboards but to do so without  echoing one of his too obviously.  This grateful well-wisher already knows that he did not wait long enough. 

Zoran Kuzmanovich

Saluting the good reader,

Dana

Dear Nabokovians:

The spring issue of The Nabokovian is now posted! A big thank you to Priscilla Meyer, editor of The Nabokovian, and this issue's four contributors: Gerard de Vries, Mary Ross, Frances Peltz Assa and J.B. Geen.

Happy reading,

Dana

JJ Heckenhauer is a rare bookseller with a tradition for Russian books for more than 50 years. The bookseller has recently acquired a collection with more than 100 titles about Nabokov. The list is attached. If anyone is interested in this collection or thinks their institution might be interested in purchasing it, please contact Roger Sonnewald at ant@heckenhauer.de

The finding aid for the Nabokov family papers and other materials (in Dmitri Nabokov's possession when he died, and donated to Harvard, his alma mater, by the Vladimir Nabokov Literary Foundation) is now complete. The material is open for researchers. There is also an online finding aid.

Brian Boyd

The International Vladimir Nabokov Society is soliciting abstracts for two Nabokov panels at the 2020 MLA Convention in Seattle:

CFP - The International Vladimir Nabokov Society MLA 2020, Seattle: Nabokov and Contemporary Writing

Dear Nabokovians:

Thank you to the 56 of you who have renewed your IVNS memberships for 2019.            

Professor Barabtarlo.

On the first day of class, one of several with Professor Barabtarlo, he announced that we must read each book twice: The Defense, Master and Margarita, Doctor Zhivago, The First Circle. Once in order to get the gist of the matter, a second time to truly appreciate the artistry. If this would not be feasible for any of us, then it would be perfectly all right to not continue further in the course. One student seated in the back row politely excused himself. And we proceeded.

In my long friendship with Gene we shared various Nabokovian pleasures, the most spine-tingling of which occurred on the Connecticut shore in the 1980s. Gene had come to speak to my seminar at Wesleyan in early March. The next day we went for a long walk along the deserted beach--my husband was leading us to a distant promontory. Along the way Gene picked up one half of a conch shell and I the other; he said: this is the Greek etymology of “symbol” (to throw together), leading me to ask if he’d traced the shell motif through Nabokov’s novels. He hadn’t. I started my catalogue with Speak Memory, where Colette injures her foot on a mussel shell.

There was no one else like Professor Gennady Barabtarlo. I met him in person long after reading his books and profiting by them. The first time I spoke with him was at a dinner party hosted by Brian Boyd and Bronwen Nicolson to celebrate the conclusion of the Nabokov Upside Down Conference in Auckland in 2012. That first conversation took place on a warm and sunny terrace in the very middle of summer. 

A literary gift, like the gift of life, is given from above. Gennady Barabtarlo, who has just completed his life journey, was deeply appreciative of both – and of the One who sent them. He dedicated himself to Russian literature, especially to its two summits, Pushkin and Nabokov, in full awareness of the responsibility this commitment entailed. For him, language and letters were the vital force that kept the Russian mind and spirit alive.

Gene Barabtarlo was a gentleman, a conscientious and highly learned 
scholar, a great Nabokovian, an excellent linguist… and a friend. I 
first met him in June 1992. I had invited him to the first Nice 
Conference on Nabokov where he gave a paper entitled “Nabokov in the 
Wilson Archive.” I seem to remember that it was his first visit to this 
part of the world, one of Nabokov’s favorite haunts. He was constantly 
taking pictures, as he did again at the third Nice conference in 2006; 
after it, he went to Soliès-Pont and sent me pictures he had taken 
there. There was something of a Sherlock Holmes in him; he liked solving 

The news of Gennady Aleksandrovich Barabtarlo’s passing should not have caught me off-guard, but I must confess to finding myself lost for words at a moment that I knew would be coming. If I were to try to find a reason to my being at a loss today, I would have to attribute it to my irrational sense that Gennady Aleksandrovich’s rectitude, his convictions, and indeed faith would prove a bulwark against even the most potent and cunning of afflictions. No such luck, of course, but even in the haze of this sad, impossible day it is already becoming clear that this is not where this story ends.

Nabokov scholar Gennady Alexandrovich (“Gene”) Barabtarlo died on February 24, aged 70. 

Gennady Barabtarlo, 70, died peacefully at home on Feb. 24, 2019.

Visitation will be held from noon to 1 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2019, at St. Luke the Evangelist Church, 1510 Audubon Drive, Columbia. Funeral services will follow at 1 p.m. at the church. Burial will be in Columbia City Cemetery. A memorial service is planned for a later date.

This volume seeks essays exploring the experiences of teaching Lolita in the #MeToo era. I hope to bring together responses to Nabokov’s art that blend pedagogy and critical analysis. After teaching the novel for many years, many of us have witnessed (and continue to witness) a fascinating shift in student responses to the text following the start of the #MeToo movement.

Sandra Cisneros wins the 2019 PEN Nabokov Prize. 

Please find the detailed announcement by going to "RESOURCES" and scrolling down to "PRIZES AND SCHOLARSHIPS." The PEN Nabokov Prize winners are the top of the list. Or, take a shortcut by going directly here.

Dear Nabokovians:

It is my pleasure to announce the publication of the latest issue of The Nabokovian. I want to thank the editor of The Nabokovian, Priscilla Meyer, for this most recent issue. If you wish to follow the links, you will find it by going to "RESOURCES" and then scrolling down to The Nabokovian. You will find it under "complete back issues and current online issues."

Or, you can find it here:

https://thenabokovian.org/node/35562

I also take this opportunity to remind you all to renew your IVNS membership if you haven't done so already.

Dear Nabokovians:

As  promised, there will be a lot of announcements posted these next few days, so please check into TheNabokovian.org regularly.

Dear Nabokovians:

Happy New Year! 2019 holds great things in store for matters Nabokovian, some of which this message brings to your attention.

Paul Morris (U de St. Boniface) and Allan Reid (UNB) are seeking one or two additional members for a panel on Nabokov for CAS 2019.  Provisional titles of our own papers are "'Poetics of the Child' in Nabokov's Poetry" (Morris) and "'An Evening of Russian Poetry':  Interpreting Nabokov Interpreting Russian Poetry (and Culture)" (Reid).  Anyone interested in joining the panel is requested to contact us at pdmorris@ustboniface.ca and allanpreid1@gmail.com as soon as possible.

Dear Readers of TheNabokovian.org:

It is with great sadness that I post the message below from Alexey Filimonov informing us of the passing away of Boris Averin on January 4th of this new year. Boris Valentinovich will be sorely missed. Please also find below a poem written by Alexey commemorating Boris Valentinovich's life and contributions to the cultural life of St. Petersburg.

From Alexey Filimonov:

К сожалению, для нас  в Петербурге год начался с трагической вести, 4 января ушел из жизни набоковед Борис Аверин.

Our website continues to grow. Some key areas:

new links to Dieter E. Zimmer's marvelous Nabokov's Whereabouts page on his website, under both Chronology (Nabokov's Whereabouts offers a full chronology focused on where Nabokov lived and worked) and Places (where there is already also an incipient alphabetical list of places in Nabokov's life). 

more work done on the Quotations page and the Reading page

the Photographs page will soon have a range of photographs of Nabokov at various ages.

Maybe you'll have time not only to read these but to add to them over the Christmas break?

Brian Boyd

Congratulations to our member Agnès Edel-Roy for defending her PhD  entitled "Une démocratie magique: politique et littérature dans les romans de Vladimir Nabokov », at Université Paris Est-Créteil on Monday 19 November. 

We also wish to thank Agnès for the great amount of work she has devoted  to the French VN Society from its beginnings, as well as her extremely active involvement as a former President of the Society; the newsletter you receive each month being only one of her numerous contributions to the vitality of our association. 

Congratulations and many thanks dear Agnès ! 

The notes to ADA Pt 1 Ch 42 (34,000 words, a small book in themselves) are now available under the Annotations pages to members of the International Vladimir Nabokov Society. To become a member, click here.

These notes will become available after eight months on AdaOnline.

The next instalment, Pt 1 Ch 43, will become available on TheNabokovian.org in February 2019.

Brian Boyd

Call for Papers for The Nabokovian

The second part of the bipartite transatlantic symposium "Vladimir Nabokov and Translation" will take place in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, USA, on October 27-28 in Room 3009 of the FedEx Global Education Center on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill campus (301 Pittsboro St, Chapel Hill, NC 27516). The conference venue is provided by the UNC-CH Center for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (CSEES). 

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 27

9:30-10:30 AM • Coffee, Registration, and Opening Remarks

Julie Loison-Charles and Stanislav Shvabrin

Dear IVNS members,

The International Vladimir Nabokov Society has been granted funds to support conferences each year. The Society will distribute an annual total of up to US$10,000 to support the operations of one or two conferences. The goal of the Society is to create and/or cosponsor conferences in all major regions of the globe, with regular rotation among the regions (especially between Europe and North America).  

NB: James Ramey, co-organizer of the Symposium, would like subscribers to know that Joyce-Nabokov-themed papers and panels are welcome. Michael Wood has accepted to deliver one of the key-note addresses.

Joyce Without Borders

2019 North American James Joyce Symposium

Mexico City, June 12-16

Website: www.joycewithoutborders.com

Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/joycewithoutborders/

Twitter: @joycewithout

Dear Nabokovians,  

Chers toutes et tous, 

Nous sommes heureux de vous faire parvenir aujourd'hui notre appel à communications pour le prochain colloque international de la Société française Vladimir Nabokov, qui aura lieu du 6 au 8 juin 2019 à Sorbonne Université (Paris) et l'Unviersité de Cergy -Pontoise. 

Yannicke Chupin 

Société française Vladimir Nabokov

[Scroll down for the English version]. 

Colloque international « Vladimir Nabokov : Histoire et géographie »

6-8 juin 2019, Paris, Sorbonne Université/Université de Cergy-Pontoise

Organisé par la Société française Vladimir Nabokov

Exciting news for Nabokov scholars and students: the final material left in Dmitri Nabokov's possession at his death has been gifted by the Vladimir Nabokov Literary Foundation to Harvard, Dmitri's alma mater, where his father worked both as a lepidopterist and literature professor. The material will be available for researchers in 2019. 

Here is a blog announcing the gift and introducing a sample item, a Russian grammar Nabokov used for teaching.

Brian Boyd

The American Comparative Literature Association is organizing a seminar on Nabokov's Lectures, “The Center of This or That Masterpiece": Nabokov's Lectures,” presumably for its annual meeting at Georgetown University, Washington DC, March 7-10, 2019 . To see the CFP, click here. Paper submissions through the portal close very soon, September 20.

A new section on the Nabokovian website has been set up: Reading, to include what Nabokov read and when, and his evaluations, analyses, and uses of this reading. Read, and discover some surprises!

And please contribute! At present this important new facility has no editor. If you would like to become the editor responsible for this page (anyone signed up to the website may create or edit any individual contributions), please contact the website's editor, Dana Dragunoiu.

“Do the Senses Make Sense?”: The Five Senses in Nabokov’s Work

After the successful Biarritz conference on the topic, the French Vladimir Nabokov Society invites scholars for further contributions on the importance and significance of the Five Senses in Nabokov’s work, poetics and aesthetics, for the publication based on the conference.

Our site's archive of the NABOKV-L mailing list has been updated to include messages from November 2017 up until June 20, 2018. You can browse the new messages now, and in a couple days they will become searchable by our site's search engine.

Submissions for Nabokov and Translation 2 (Chapel Hill, Oct. 27-28 2018) are being accepted until July 1, 2018.

MLA 2019 Convention (Chicago)  Session: Dreaming with Nabokov

Chair: Dr Thomas Karshan (University of East Anglia, President of the International Vladimir Nabokov Society)

1. Professor Jennifer Sears (New York City College of Technology): ‘Kissing Her Ellipses: Dreams and Narrative Texture in Nabokov’s “Ultima Thule”’

Dmitry Kirsanov is finishing up the Nabokv-L Archive's interface on this web site, with powerful searching and sorting tools.

Update: The complete archive, 27580 messages from 1993 up until Nov 2017, is now available on this site. You can browse by years, as well as by authors (by clicking on an author name in a message). All messages are also searchable by the site's search (top right on any page). All message attachments are preserved and linked at the bottom of the corresponding message pages.

571. Nabokov and Correspondence

Saturday, 6 January 12:00 PM-1:15 PM  THURSDAY, 4 JANUARY 7:00 PM-8:15 PM

1. Little Stray Dogs: Nabokov’s Letters Lost in the Post, Thomas Karshan (U of East Anglia) [#4472]

2. Letters to Véra: Nabokov’s Invisible Revisions, Lyndsay Miller (U of Glasgow) [#4473]

3.

Nabokov Studies, Vol. 15 (2017) Table of Contents

            Articles

                                                                                 Vladimir Nabokov Society (Online) Business Meeting  Instructions