Vladimir Nabakov

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (1899–1977) was a Russian-American novelist, poet, translator, and literary scholar renowned for his intricate style, wordplay, and narrative ingenuity. Born in Saint Petersburg, he left Russia after the 1917 Revolution and later lived in Germany and France before moving to the United States in 1940. Nabokov taught literature at Wellesley College and Cornell University and became a U.S. citizen in 1945. He wrote in both Russian and English, achieving international fame with *Lolita* (1955) and the formally inventive *Pale Fire* (1962). In later years he lived in Switzerland, where he died in 1977.