Bibliographic title
"They Are All Too Foreign and Unfamiliar.. .": Nabokov’s Journey to the American Reader
Publisher, city
Periodical or collection
Metacritic Journal for Comparative Studies and Theory
Periodical issue
v. 3, no. 2
Page(s)
25-51
Publication year
Abstract
Both in Speak, Memory and in Strong Opinions, Nabokov insists on his early proficiency in English, French. This authorial stance makes it easy to believe that the writer’s transition to English was easy. And yet, Nabokov’s correspondence with publishers and his literary agent, Altagracia de Jannelli, reveals that this conversion was torturous and required extensive support from native speaker editors and translators.