Fanny Wehner (ZfL): Vladimir Nabokov – Berlin wider Willen: fünf Adressen und ein Stadtführer

Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) was one of the most important writers of the 20th century. He spent fifteen years in Berlin, where he developed the unique writing style for which he would become renowned. However, his relationship with the German capital was ambivalent at best. Although “Russian Berlin” offered him many opportunities through its variety of newspapers, magazines and publishing houses, his life there, marked by poverty and personal loss, was soon threatened by National Socialism. After being forced to leave in 1937 with his Jewish wife, Véra, and their son, Nabokov never returned. Yet he wrote wonderful texts about Berlin, addressing the big questions of life and art against the backdrop of everyday life in the city.

Reading by Daniel Petrenko und Moritz Tostmann, students in the Acting program at Berlin University of the Arts.  

Literarische Heimat Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf

Many authors who helped shape the cultural life of their time spent years of their lives in Berlin’s Wilmersdorf and Charlottenburg districts. In cooperation with the ZfL and the Acting program at the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK), the Stadtbibliothek Charlottenburg-Wilmersdorf presents some of these authors.

Fig. above: D.M. Nagu from the series Songs for a Future Generation (2020) (detail)