Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak, Memory: Bookmarked

Vladimir Nabokov’s Speak, Memory is one of the most critically acclaimed memoirs of the twentieth century. In this classic account of his life, Nabokov writes about his idyllic Russian childhood in an aristocratic family, the 1917 Bolshevik revolution that led to his exile from Russia, and the path that would eventually lead him to live in the United States.

In the latest volume in Ig’s acclaimed Bookmarked series, celebrated author and critic Sven Birkerts writes about how Speak, Memory not only intersects with various central life concerns (exile, serendipity and coincidence, childhood, literary redemption), but is also vital to understanding the workings of memory in literature.

SVEN BIRKERTS has been editor of AGNI since July 2002. Among his previous books are Changing the Subject: Art and Attention in the Internet Age; The Other Walk; Art of Time in Memoir: Then, Again; and Reading Life: Books for the Ages; American Energies: Essays on Fiction; The Gutenberg Elegies: The Fate of Reading in an Electronic Age; Readings; and My Sky Blue Trades: Growing Up Counter in a Contrary Time. He was winner of the Citation for Excellence in Reviewing from the National Book Critics Circle and the Spielvogel-Diamonstein Award from PEN for the best book of essays. He was the director of the Bennington Writing Seminars from 2007-2017 and has been a member of the core faculty since its founding in 1994. He lives in Arlington, Massachusetts, with his wife and two children.