In his last completed novel, “Look at the Harlequins!” (1974), the author of “Дар,” “Lolita,” and “Ada” turns to the theme of the mysterious influence of love on art. With unprecedented fervor and wit in his mirrorlike memoirs, Nabokov transforms his own biography into fiction, burlesque, and an “arlechinade,” sending his hero—the famous Russian-American writer Vadim Vadimovich N.—on a long, full of hardships journey that promises him, at the end of his life, the discovery of true love, reality, and happiness.
The novel is published in a translation by Andrei Babikov and includes an afterword, commentary, and additional materials that illuminate the history of its creation.