The Fate of Nabokov’s Final, Unpublished Work

When Vladimir Nabokov died in 1977, he was work­ing on a man­u­script called The Orig­i­nal of Lau­ra. And he asked that it remain locked in a Swiss vault and nev­er pub­lished. His son, Dmitri, who also hap­pens to be his trans­la­tor and sur­viv­ing heir, is now won­der­ing what to do with “the most con­cen­trat­ed dis­til­la­tion of [my father’s] cre­ativ­i­ty.” To burn or not to burn? That’s Dmitri’s dilem­ma, and it gets explored in this piece by Slate.

Relat­ed Video Con­tent:

Nabokov Read­ing from Loli­ta

Nabokov on Loli­ta