In her memoir The Italics Are Mine, Nina Berberov famously compares Nabokov to Phoenix who "was born out of the fire and ashes of Revolution and exile" (I quote from the Russian version "Kursiv moy" and would be grateful if somebody kindly provides the English translation of the whole passage). Berberov's reminiscences appeared in 1969, the same year that Ada was published.

In my paper on the fairy-tale motifs in Ada, I argue that Phoenix in Golos Feniksa ("The Voice of Phoenix," a Russian-language newspaper whose old issues Dorothy Vinelander reads to her sick brother) is not only a reference to the city in Arisona, and to a fabulous bird, but also an allusion to Nabokov himself. I can prove this even without bringing forward the evidence of Berberov's simile. But, still, I wonder if this comparison of Nabokov-Sirin to Phoenix appears in the Berberov memoir for the first time, if it doesn't occur by any chance in one of her previous articles on Nabokov? (I notice for example that, in her article "Nabokov i ego Loilta" (Novyi Zhurnal, 1959, #57), she also mentions Phoenix, but without directly linking Nabokov to it this time.) May be there are fine Berberov experts on the List who would know this?

Thank you, as always, for your note/query. If you can indicate roughly where Berberova's comment occurs, it will make it easier to compare the texts. BTW, the Russian text is the original. Your suggestion may well be true but, on the other hand, the Phoenix allusion is extremely common. Don