Authorship in Nabokov’s Prefaces

Whereas literary criticism has mainly oscillated between “the death of the author” (Barthes) and “the return of the author” (Couturier), this work suggests another perspective on authorship through an analysis of Nabokov’s prefaces. It is here argued that the author, being neither dead nor tyrannical, alternates between authoritative apparitions and receding disappearances in the double gesture of mastery without mastery which Derrida calls ‘exappropriation’, that is, a simultaneous attempt to appropriate one’s work, control it, have it under one’s power and expropriate it, losing control by loosening one’s grip. The intention of this is to approach, through one’s experience of reading and interpreting, the experience of self-effacement and impersonality pertaining to writing (cf. Blanchot). Prefaces are considered to be suitable places for the deconstruction of the classical image of Nabokov’s arrogance through the unearthing of his reserve and vulnerability. This work provides an account of the mere intuition (which, therefore, does not pretend to be a conclusive and definitive interpretation) of another image of Nabokov whose undeniable talent for deception seems in accordance with a need for discretion and secrecy.


Jacqueline Hamrit teaches English (as a professeur agrégée) at the University of Lille, France. Her main research topics are literature, literary theory and deconstruction. She has published essays and articles on Nabokov and Derrida in journals such as the OLR (Oxford Literary Review), PSYART (An Online Journal for the Psychological Study of the Arts) and Zembla (the International Vladimir Nabokov Society site).

“I have followed Jacqueline Hamrit’s career from the beginning and have always found her extremely dedicated and competent, always seeking to open new perspectives on Nabokov’s works. […] This book tries to tackle a very difficult problem which hasn’t received sufficient attention in Nabokov criticism in my view. Nabokov always urges his analysts to annotate his works, doing his best to side-track their attention away from himself […] Jacqueline’s book, which is very well documented and takes into account much of Nabokov criticism, opens a new approach to a problem which is at the heart of this author’s work. It offers a very useful contribution to Nabokov studies.”
—Maurice Couturier, Professor Emeritus, University of Nice

Buy This Book

ISBN: 1-4438-6682-2

ISBN13: 978-1-4438-6682-8

Release Date: 9th December 2014

Pages: 160

Price: £41.99

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