Rakhimova-Sommers (Russian/global literature, Rochester Institute of Technology) brings together 11 Nabokov scholars to study the thorny question of the role of women in his work. Her exemplary introduction succinctly describes not only the content but also the critical approaches most Nabokovians have used to assess the place and importance of women’s voices in the writer’s narration. She also provides an intelligent, enlightening, and concise survey of the way women in Nabokov’s works have, in the main, been categorized by Nabokov's critics: i.e., as passive participants in the male narrator’s active storytelling. The essays. . . fall into three categories—women as fugitive souls, women as figments of desire, and women as lost voices—and the editor arranges the volume accordingly. This collection is a most welcome—and timely—addition to Nabokov criticism. At last scholars are illuminating the fact that women play a more prominent role in narration and the narrative than previously suggested. Required reading for scholars and students interested in Nabokov or women’s studies.



Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty.

Choice Reviews

Shrinking violets no more: A liberating look at Nabokov’s fictional women and a much needed – and long overdue – addition to Nabokov Studies!

Galya Diment, University of Washington

Elena Rakhimova-Sommers' edited volume is a welcome contribution to Nabokov studies that urges us to listen to the voices of Nabokov’s heroines and to chart the territories they occupy. By engaging with a large number of texts, Nabokov’s Women offers a rich and varied investigation into the bodies, voices and destinies of heroines who inhabit and haunt Nabokov’s fiction, from Mary to Ada.

Monica Manolescu, University of Strasbourg

This collection begins to fill in a long-neglected area of Vladimir Nabokov’s work . . . [It has] many treasures, and it points toward a rich future of continued discovery.

Slavic Review