The spiral is the spirituality of the circle. In the spiral form, the circle, unwinding and expanding, is no longer vicious; it has been liberated. I had thought about these things while I was in school and simultaneously discovered that Hegel's triadic succession (so popular in old Russia) fundamentally expressed the essentially spiral relationship of things with time... A colorful spiral inside a small glass sphere - this is how I see my life...

This book systematically collects and relates a series of personal memories with geographical reach from Saint Petersburg to Saint-Nazaire, covering a time span of thirty-seven years, from August 1903 to May 1940, with only a few excursions into later times and spaces...

This re-Anglicization of a Russian reissue of what was the English retelling of initial Russian memories proved to be a devilish undertaking, but I was somewhat consoled by the thought that such multiple transformation, familiar to butterflies, had not previously been attempted by humans. Vladimir Nabokov.

A captivating and rich reconstruction of his life, an incredibly valuable initiation into the literary universe of the great writer... This new edition includes, for the first time, as an epilogue the so-called "sixteenth chapter," a "pseudo-review" of the autobiography, written by the author himself in 1950. "A book that pulses with vigorous energy, a celebration of language and a unique vision..." Penelope Lively.