The Enchanter is a novella written by Vladimir Nabokov in Paris in 1939. As Волшебник (Volshebnik) it was his last work of fiction written in Russian. Nabokov never published it during his lifetime. After his death, his son Dmitri translated the novella into English in 1986 and it was published the following year. Its original Russian version became available in 1991. The story deals with the hebephilia of the protagonist and thus is linked to and presages the Lolita theme.
First edition
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov, also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin, was an expatriate Russian and Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian (1926–1938) while living in Berlin, where he met his wife. He achieved international acclaim and prominence after moving to the United States, where he began writing in English. Nabokov became an American citizen in 1945 and lived mostly on the East Coast before returning to Europe in 1961, where he settled in Montreux, Switzerland.
Nabokov in Montreux, Switzerland, 1973
Nabokov's grandfather Dmitry Nabokov, who was Justice Minister under Tsar Alexander II
Nabokov's father, V. D. Nabokov, in his World War I officer's uniform, 1914
The Nabokov family mansion in Saint Petersburg; today it is the site of the Nabokov museum.