Ada sau ardoarea

Vladimir Nabokov’s Ada sau ardoarea tells of incest between a brother and sister. The novel blends fairy tale, epic, and erotic writing. It uses philosophy to ask what time is. Throughout the book, people hide who they are and deceive others. The text also uses parody. This mix suits readers who like fiction that tries new forms.

The book came out two weeks after Nabokov turned seventy. Horia Florian Popescu made this translation from the English text. It forms part of Polirom’s series of Nabokov’s work.

Nabokov was born in Saint Petersburg in 1899. His family left Russia in 1919 due to political unrest. He went to Trinity College, Cambridge. There he studied Slavic and Romance languages. He then lived in Berlin and Paris and wrote in Russian. He wrote novels, short stories, poems, and plays.

In 1940, he fled to America with his wife and son. He feared that he would face a concentration camp. In America, he began to write novels in English. He taught at Wellesley, Harvard, and Stanford. From 1948 to 1959, he taught at Cornell. His subject there was Russian literature. He won the National Book Foundation Medal for his literary work. He died in 1977.