Juan Martinez Juan Martinez

Nabokov's Chess Sonnets

The sonnets are available at Chess Aficionado. From the site: 
This is the first English verse translation of the trio of linked chess sonnets that Vladimir Nabokov published in the Russian émigré journal Rul' in Berlin in November 1924. It is certainly the first by an eighty-year old! Who, OK, needed some assistance. Nabokov could, and should, have published an English translation himself, but sadly he never did. Uniquely, the sonnets, taken together, link chess, chess problems, chess history and - sex. Nabokov was to marry his lifelong partner-to-be Vera in 1925. 
(Via the Nabokv-L Listserv.)
Read More