Gholamreza Shafiee:Another possible model for Kinbote is Richard Burton, the famous translator of 1001 Nights, whose kinky and highly personal notes VN might have read while working on his Eugene Onegin translation/annotation.  This is of course not my find. It is Robert Irwin’s view in The Companion to Arabian Nights.

JM: Richard Burton is mentioned in “Ada” at least twice ( and “The Perfumed Garden”), so it is highly probable that VN was acquainted with the bulk of his translations. Nevertheless, I don’t see Kinbote as being modeled after Burton, perhaps a little of Sheherazade?  Nabokov once denied being familiar with John Barth, so I don’t think thered be any link with Barth’s works and “Chimera” comes later, anyway (1971?)