Before he died in 1977, Vladimir Nabokov left instructions that his unfinished novel, The Original of Laura, be torched. Nabokov's son and literary heir, Dmitri Nabokov put off what to do for more than 30 years, keeping his father's manuscript hidden away in a Swiss bank vault.
But now, as revealed in an article "Laura is not even the original's name" in the Nabokov Online Journal, Dmitri says he'll publish the work, scrawled in his father's hand in pencil on 50 index cards. The journal is edited by Yuri Leving, professor of Russian Studies at Dalhousie Univeristy.
What do you think about Dmitri's decision? Should he have respected his father's wishes or is it more important that the novel, even in its unfinished state, be published?
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