Man from the USSR

This collection is made up of the plays by Vladimir Nabokov "The Man from the USSR," "The Event," and "The Invention of the Waltz," created in Germany and France between 1926 and 1938. Unlike the earlier poetic plays, they are written in prose, where the already recognized writer continues his thematic and plot explorations. The mysterious projects of Kuznetsov, who arrived from the USSR in Berlin, the family drama of the artist Troshcheikin, the mad spiraling of the inventor of the Waltz between reality and fantasy — the conflicts and collisions of these plays are surprisingly modern and captivating. The unpublished drama "The Man from the USSR" during Nabokov's lifetime is printed from the archival text. The play "The Invention of the Waltz" is published for the first time in an expanded edition of 1968. The publication is accompanied by the editor's comments and an appendix that includes new archival materials.