Nabokov Son To Publish, Not Burn, ‘The Original of Laura’
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Vladimir Nabokov’s son has decided to publish his father’s last novel, against his wishes, Der Spiegel reported this week. Dmitri Nabokov, 73, has agonized for years over whether to follow his father’s dying instruction to burn the manuscript of the novel, called “The Original of Laura,” which exists on a collection of 50 index cards stored in a Swiss bank vault. He told Der Spiegel this week that he has decided not to burn it. In the past, Mr. Nabokov has called the novel both “the most concentrated distillation of [his father’s] creativity” and a “radical” departure from his previous novels. His waffling on the question of whether to burn or to publish led the critic Ron Rosenbaum earlier this year to issue a public plea, in the online magazine Slate, for Mr. Nabokov to make up his mind.
