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Dmitri Nabokov

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Born: May 09 1934

Dmitri Vladimirovich Nabokov is an American opera singer and translator. He is the only child of writer
Vladimir Nabokov
and his wife Vera Nabokov, and is currently executor of his father's literary estate.

Dmitri Nabokov was born on May 10, 1934, in Berlin, to Vladimir Nabokov and Vera Slonim Nabokova. Due to Nazi Germany's growing political and social repression and the likelihood that the regime might target the family based on Vera Nabokova's Jewish ancestry, the Nabokovs fled to Paris in 1937, and immigrated to New York City in 1940. Dmitri Nabokov subsequently grew up there, in the Boston area during the years that his father taught at Wellesley College and served as curator of lepidoptery at Harvard University's Museum of Comparative Zoology, and in Ithaca while his father taught at Cornell University.

Nabokov entered Harvard College in 1951, lived in Lowell House, and studied History and Literature. Although he scored high on the LSAT and was accepted to Harvard Law School , he declined admission because he was searching for an avocation. After graduating cum laude in 1955, he studied singing for two years at the Longy School of Music. He then joined the U.S. Army as an instructor in military Russian and as an assistant to a chaplain.

In 1961 Nabokov made his operatic début by winning the Reggio Emilia International Opera Competition, basso division, singing the role of Colline in La Bohème . Among the highlights from his operatic career are performances at the Gran Teatre del Liceu with the soprano Montserrat Caballé and the tenor Jaume Aragall.

In 1980, Nabokov, also a semi-professional racecar driver, was driving a competition-model Ferrari 308 GTB when he crashed in Chexbres, on an autoroute linking Montreux and Lausanne. He not only suffered third-degree burns over 40% of his body, but fractured his neck. Nabokov has said that he temporarily died: "[I am] enticed by a bright light at the far end of the classic tunnel, but restrain myself at the last instant when I think of those who care for me and of important things I must still do." The injuries suffered in the crash effectively ended his operatic career.

Nabokov has translated many of his father's works, including novels, plays, poems, lectures, and letters, into several languages. One of his first translations, from Russian to English, was Invitation to a Beheading, under his father's supervision. In 1986, Dmitri published his translation of a novella previously unknown to the public. The Enchanter , written in Russian in 1939, was deemed "a dead scrap" by Vladimir Nabokov and thought to have been destroyed. The novella has some similarities to Lolita; consequently it has been described as the Ur-Lolita , a precursor to Nabokov's best-known work.

As executor of his father's literary estate, Nabokov has also wrestled for 30 years over whether to publish his father's final manuscript, The Original of Laura. It was published by Knopf on November 16, 2009.

In celebration of Vladimir Nabokov's centennial in 1999, Dmitri appeared as his father in Terry Quinn's Dear Bunny, Dear Volodya, a dramatic reading based on the personal letters between Nabokov and literary and social critic Edmund Wilson. Performances took place in New York, Paris, Mainz, and Ithaca.

Although it is well known that Nabokov also writes, he does not share his pen name, unlike his father.

Dmitri is a life-long bachelor and has no children. He lives in Palm Beach, Florida and Montreux, Switzerland.

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Dmitri Nabokov

Dmitri Nabokov

Books from Dmitri Nabokov

Invitation to a Beheading

The Eye

King, Queen, Knave

The Enchanter

Glory

L'incantatore

Zuivere kleuren: brieven 1923-1977

Man From The USSR Other Plays: And Other Plays

The Original of Laura

MIT Press: 2 Book Series

Collected Poems

In memoriam Vladimir Nabokov, 1899-1977

The Gift