Invitation to a Beheading

novel by Nabokov

Also known as: “Priglasheniye na kazn”

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Invitation to a Beheading, anti-utopian novel by Vladimir Nabokov, published serially in Russian as Priglasheniye na kazn from 1935 to 1936 and in book form in 1938. It is a stylistic tour de force. The novel is set in a mythical totalitarian country and presents the thoughts of Cincinnatus, a former teacher who has been convicted of “gnostic turpitude” for being different from his mediocre fellow countrymen. Sentenced to be executed at an unknown date,...