Dear List,

 

Margarida Vale de Gato, whom I also know as a fellow Poe scholar (a question, by the way: how many critics focus on both Poe and Nabokov?), asked about how Nabokov translated his Gallicisms in the Russian Lolita.

 

The French phrases appear as in the English original, that is, in the Roman alphabet (not Cyrillic).  He translates such phrases into Russian (in Cyrillic) in a few pages at the end of the volume, after the afterword (pp. 300-304).  In terms of translating Lolita, it would also be useful to consult Nabokov's letters with his publishers about the French phrases in his Selected Letters.

 

It might also be useful to consult An English-Russian Dictionary of Nabokov's Lolita, by A. Nakhimovsky and S. Paperno (Ann Arbor, MI: Ardis, 1982).

 

Yours,

SES

 

Susan Elizabeth Sweeney

Co-Editor, NABOKV-L

 

> Hello
> I am currently translating Lolita into Portuguese and I have three queries
> about how Nabokov translated Lolita into Russian:
>
> - did he keep the Gallicisms? (if so, were they transcribed in Russian
> alphabet or did he use standard French)
>
> - did he maintain / introduce anglicisms and how?
>
> - apparently he introduced a sort of dictionary after an afterword. What
> did this dictionary contain?
>
> Thanks to anyone who may help.