A Revolver to Carry at Night with Monika Zgustova

Join us for an evening with Monika Zgustova to discuss her new book A Revolver to Carry at Night, a captivating, nuanced portrait of the life of Véra Nabokov, who dedicated herself to advancing her husband’s writing career, playing a vital role in the creation of his greatest works. Registration requested.

This event will take place in the Decatur Library Auditorium. Please enter through the Ground Floor doors, from the lower level of the parking deck.

About the Book:

Véra Nabokov (1902–1991) was in many ways the epitome of the wife of a great man: keenly aware of her husband’s extraordinary talent, she decided to make his success her ultimate goal, throughout fifty-two years of marriage until his death in 1977. The first reader of his texts, Véra worked as typist and editor. She organized their lives in exile, as they traveled to Berlin, Paris, Switzerland, and, most importantly, the US, where she convinced Vladimir to focus on writing novels in English. She not only controlled the family’s finances and contract negotiations, but also attempted to control his friendships—particularly with women—going so far as to audit his classes.

In this rich, sweeping novel, Monika Zgustova immerses us in the daily life of this remarkable couple, offering insights into their complex personal and professional relationships, as well as the real people behind characters such as Lolita. Véra considered herself an independent woman, but was she really, when her husband took up so much space? And without Véra, could Nabokov have become one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers?

About the Author:

Monika Zgustova is an author who won several major awards (including the “Calamo” and “Amat-Piniella” awards for the best novel of the year, as well as the “Merce Rodoreda” award for short stories) whose literary works (eight books of fiction, three of non-fiction, and a play) have been published in ten languages. Four of her books have been translated into English: Dressed for a Dance in the Snow (Other Press, 2020), The Silent Woman and Goya’s Glass (The Feminist Press-CUNY, 2014 and 2012), and Fresh Mint With Lemon (Open Road, 2013). She was born in Prague. She lived for five years in the US where she studied comparative literature at the universities of Chicago and Illinois. She currently lives in Barcelona and writes for El Pais, The Nation, CounterPunch, Granta, and is preparing a column for The Wall Street Journal. As a translator of Czech and Russian literature –including Havel, Kundera, Hrabal, Hasek, Capek, Seifert, Akhmatova, Tsvetaeva, Dostoevsky and Babel– Zgustova is credited with bringing major twentieth-century writers into Spanish and Catalan. She got the prestigious “City of Barcelona” (Spain) and “Masaryk” (Czech Republic) awards for her translations. She also worked with a co-author on the Russian-Catalan dictionary. She lectured in European universities and cultural centers (in Paris, Frankfurt, Berlin, Prague, Warsaw, Brussels, Barcelona, Madrid, Prague, Vienna, Bucharest, Moscow, St Petersburg, Tbilisi, Budapest), as well as in American and Canadian universities (U of Montreal, U of Illinois, U of Michigan, U of Vermont, and Ohio State University, among others), and in Latin America (Mexico, Santiago de Chile). She appeared at several international book festivals: Hay Festival, Pen World Voices (NYC), The Festival of Authors (Toronto), and Festival Ñ (Madrid-Malaga), among others. She had readings from her books at several international book fairs: the Frankfurt Book Fair, the FIL (Feria Internacional del Libro) of Guadalajara, and the Sharjah International Book Fair, United Arab Emirates.