Volshebnik

About “Volshebnik”

Nabokov wrote a novella in Paris in 1939 that was not published until twenty years later. He called it 'the first little throb of Lolita.' The story follows a middle-aged man who marries an unattractive widow to satisfy his paedophilic desire for her daughter. The Enchanter shares a similar plot with Lolita, but it has a different atmosphere. The setting, time, and names are kept secret. Nabokov turns the protagonist's attempts to enchant his twelve-year-old stepdaughter into a graceful and chilling fairytale.