Other Shores is an autobiographical memoir by Vladimir Nabokov, a Russian-American classic writer, author of the novels The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, The Gift, and the controversial Lolita. The book was originally published in 1951 under the title Conclusive Evidence, three years later an expanded version translated into Russian by Nabokov himself was published under the title Other...

Vladimir Nabokov began working on his first novel, tentatively titled Happiness, in 1924 in Berlin. By the end of the year, the first two chapters of the book were ready, but the writer soon decided to destroy the manuscript. Only a small excerpt survived, which Nabokov reworked into a short story and published in January 1925 under the title Letter to Russia. He decided to return to the...

This is the childhood advice given by an aunt to Russian born writer Vadim Vadimovich, who emigrates to England, then Paris, then Germany and then the US. Now dying, he reconstructs his past. He remembers Iris his first wife, Annette his long-necked typist, and Bel his daughter, as well as his own bizarre illness, 'numerical nimbus syndrome'.

As a young boy, Luzhin was unattractive, distracted, withdrawn, sullen--an enigma to his parents and an object of ridicule to his classmates. He takes up chess as a refuge from the anxiety of his everyday life. His talent is prodigious and he rises to the rank of grandmaster--but at a cost: in Luzhin' s obsessive mind, the game of chess gradually supplants the world of reality. His own...

Valerian Pidmohylnyi’s The City was a landmark event in the history of Ukrainian literature. Written by a master craftsman in full control of the texture, rhythm, and tone of the text, the novel tells the story of Stepan, a young man from the provinces who moves to the capital of Ukraine, Kyiv, and achieves success as a writer through a succession of romantic encounters with women.

Hapless cosmonaut Ijon Tichy has been sent back to earth to attend the Eighth Futurological Congress in smog-bound, overpopulated Costa Rica, holed up with an assortment of scientists in a luxury hotel (fully equipped with tear gas sprinklers in case things get out of hand). But when an unfortunate incident occurs involving a revolution and hallucinogenic drugs in the water supply, Tichy finds...