Books by Brian Boyd
Vladimir Nabokov
by Brian Boyd
Boyd’s biography… It’s huge. Two enormous volumes. Monumental. It still remains the single most important book on Nabokov, having eclipsed a lot of things when it was published. It is reliable and readable. Boyd had access to Nabokov family materials. The field has changed in the past 20 years and there have been other biographies, including two Russian-language ones, neither one particularly outstanding. If I’m asked which biography is the best, I’d say the Boyd, even though I do have some reservations about it. I think in a way it’s almost too perfect, and in places it perfects and corrects Nabokov himself.
Interviews where books by Brian Boyd were recommended
Best Vladimir Nabokov Books, recommended by Maxim D Shrayer
Bilingual author and translator with his pick of the five must-reads by – and about – Nabokov. Says a revisionist biography of the writer is due, which comes to terms with the Jewish influence on his work
