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The Real Life of Sebastian Knight
novel by Nabokov
The Real Life of Sebastian Knight, novel by Vladimir Nabokov, published in 1941. It was his first prose narrative in English. The work, which is a satire of literary biography and scholarship, purports to be the true biography of a great writer, the late and neglected Sebastian Knight; it is written by his half brother, V., in response to another biographer’s belittling analysis of Sebastian. Before long, however, V.’s “biography” turns into a mystery story as he searches for the true facts about Sebastian among Sebastian’s acquaintances. Himself a mediocre writer, V. eventually has a crisis of identity, and his search for the real Sebastian becomes a search for himself.
This article was most recently revised and updated by Kathleen Kuiper.
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