Description: Leving presents a new systematization of the main available data on Vladimir Nabokov's most complex Russian novel, "The Gift" (1934-1939). From notes in Nabokov's private correspondence to scholarly articles accumulated during the 70 years since the novel's first appearance in print, the work draws from a broad spectrum of existing material to provide innovative analyses.
Brief description: Yuri Leving earned his PhD (summa cum laude) in 2002, at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He came to Dalhousie University after two years teaching at The George Washington University (2004-2006). His main field of interest is Russian literature, culture and film. Leving is the author of Train Station - Garage - Hangar: Vladimir Nabokov and Poetics of Russian Urbanism (2004, Short-listed for Andrey Bely Prize) and Upbringing by Optics: Book Illustration, Animation, and Text (2010). He also co-edited three volumes of articles, The Goalkeeper: The Nabokov Almanac (2010), Empire N. Nabokov and Heirs (2006), and Eglantine: Collection of Philological Essays to Honor the Sixtieth Anniversary of Roman Timenchik (2005).
Review Quotes: "Yuri Leving's meticulous dissection of Nabokov's last Russian novel, The Gift, fully vindicates his claim for it as 'one of the masterpieces of twentieth century modernist literature, ' fit to stand beside Joyce's Ulysses for the allusive richness of its content and the musicality of its prose. In seven richly fact-filled chapters Leving has unearthed a wealth of historical, chronological, biographical, textological, literary critical and bibliographical material to bolster his case, and like a scrupulous archeologist, uncovers the multiple layers of Nabokov's complex creation to illustrate and illuminate its artistic essence. In it's masterly marshaling of evidence, Leving's work is unlikely to be surpassed anytime soon."--Michael Scammell, the author of Solzhenitsyn, A Biography (1984) and Koestler: The Indispensable Intellectual (2010), the translator of The Gift into English