Immigrant of the Day: Vladimir Nabokov (Russia)
Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) was a Russian-American novelist. His first nine novels were in Russian, and he achieved international prominence after he began writing English prose. His most famous book Lolita (1955) was also controversial.
Nabokov immigrated in New York. He joined the staff of Wellesley College in 1941 as resident lecturer in comparative literature. The position, created specifically for him, provided an income and free time to write creatively. Nabokov founded Wellesley’s Russian Department.
In 1945, Nabokov became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
Nabokov left Wellesley in 1948 to teach Russian and European literature at Cornell University, where he taught until 1959. Among his students at Cornell was future U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who later identified Nabokov as a major influence on her development as a writer.
Nabokov wrote Lolita while travelling on butterfly-collection trips in the western United States that he undertook every summer. In June 1953 Nabokov and his family went to Ashland, Oregon. There he finished Lolita.
KJ