The Eye (novel)

The Eye

First English edition
Author	Vladimir Nabokov
Original title	Соглядатай (Sogliadatai)
Translator	Dmitri Nabokov
Language	Russian
Publisher	Phaedra[1]
Publication date	1930
Published in English	1965

The Eye (Russian: Соглядатай, Sogliadatai, literally 'voyeur' or 'peeper'), written in 1930, is Vladimir Nabokov's fourth novel. It was translated into English by the author's son Dmitri Nabokov in 1965.

At around 80 pages, The Eye is Nabokov's shortest novel. Nabokov himself referred to it as a 'little novel' and it is a work that sits somewhere around the boundary between extended short story and novella. It was produced during a hiatus in Nabokov's creation of short stories between 1927 and 1930 as a result of his growing success as a novelist.^[2]

As in many of Nabokov's early works, the characters are largely Russian émigrés relocated to Europe, specifically Berlin. In this case, the novel is set in two houses where a young Russian tutor, Smurov, is renting room and board.