Priglashenie na kaznʹ (1938)
Priglashenie na kaznʹ is a 1938 surreal book written by Vladimir Nabokov and Dmitri Nabokov.
Cincinnatus C. sits in a fortress cell, condemned to death for a crime the authorities call gnostical turpitude: the offense of being opaque, unknowable, unlike everyone around him. Vladimir Nabokov turns his imprisonment into a shifting, dreamlike ordeal where jailers, visitors and even the walls feel staged, and no one will tell him the hour of his execution. First serialized in Russian in the 1930s and later translated with his son Dmitri, the novel reads as a mordant fable about individuality under a regime that cannot bear it, playful and quietly terrifying in equal measure.
Quick answers
What is Priglashenie na kaznʹ about?
Cincinnatus C. sits in a fortress cell, condemned to death for a crime the authorities call gnostical turpitude: the offense of being opaque, unknowable, unlike everyone around him. Vladimir Nabokov turns his imprisonment into a shifting, dreamlike ordeal where jailers, visitors and even the walls feel staged, and no one will tell him the hour of his execution. First serialized in Russian in the 1930s and later translated with his son Dmitri, the novel reads as a mordant fable about individuality under a regime that cannot bear it, playful and quietly terrifying in equal measure.
When was Priglashenie na kaznʹ published?
Priglashenie na kaznʹ was published in 1938.
Who made Priglashenie na kaznʹ?
Priglashenie na kaznʹ was written by Vladimir Nabokov and Dmitri Nabokov.
A few thoughts on Priglashenie na kaznʹ
Readers drawn to this absurd, oppressive dream should try Kafka's The Trial, its clearest cousin in bureaucratic dread, and Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four for the crushed individual under total power. Camus's The Stranger shares the condemned-man clarity and its cool, unsettling detachment.