The dark side of genius: Researching Nabokov’s short stories in China

The purpose of this paper is to reveal the characteristics of reception, on the one hand, and philological study, on the other hand, of the short stories of V. V. Nabokov in China. The article discusses such aspects of the topic as research on the works of V. V. Nabokov in the world scientific community; the reasons for the low degree of study of the stories of V. V. Nabokov in Chinese philological science; the current state of scientific research in the field of the Russian writer’s work in China; the problems of studying Nabokov’s stories in China. The paper notes that over the centuries-old history of both translations and scientific research of his work, most Chinese scholars have focused precisely on the writer’s novels. Meanwhile, short stories are an important part of the author’s creative heritage. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the introduction of the works of Chinese literary scholars interested in the work of V. V. Nabokov into scientific circulation. As a result, it has been found that in recent years, as more and more Chinese scholars recognize the importance of Nabokov’s short stories, their scientific development in China has brought really fruitful results. Translations, articles, monographs, etc. continue to be published, thereby opening up a new research perspective for Chinese critics and literary scholars. At the same time, the process of studying Nabokov’s stories in China faces certain problems, which are language restrictions in translation, the lack of a holistic approach to considering the author’s work in the totality of his works.