A darkly comic novel of suspense, literary idolatry and one-upmanship, and political intrigue from one of the leading writers of the twentieth century, the acclaimed author ofLolita.

“Half-poem, half-prose…a creation of perfect beauty, symmetry, strangeness, originality and moral truth. One of the great works of art of this century.”Mary McCarthy,New York Timesbestselling author ofThe Group

An ingeniously constructed parody of detective fiction and learned commentary,Pale Fireoffers a cornucopia of deceptive pleasures, at the center of which is a 999-line poem written by the literary genius John Shade just before his death. Surrounding the poem is a foreword and commentary by the demented scholar Charles Kinbote, who interweaves adoring literary analysis with the fantastical tale of an assassin from the land of Zembla in pursuit of a deposed king. Brilliantly constructed and wildly inventive, Vladimir Nabokov’s witty novel achieves that rarest of things in literatureperfect tragicomic balance.