Sad news indeed. My hearfelt condolences to his wife and children. Last week, or so, the mail delivered to me the last printed edition of “The Nabokovian”, created by Stephen Jan Parker in 1978. He had been very much in my mind this year because his insightful and still very actual book, “Understanding Nabokov”, was my constant companion during my January vacations. Its present editor, Stephen Blackwell, is organizing its publication in the International Vladimir Nabokov Society’s web space. S.Blackwell writes: “The new site will be more flexible than the print publication; it will certainly grow to contain many new features, and who knows what interesting form and variations it will evolve into during the coming years.” We were also informed that Jeff Edmund’s web site Zembla became a “static archive.”
In relation to this VN-L forum, efficient and stimulating EDS, Steve Blackwell and Susan E. Sweeney, passed the baton to Dana Dragunoiu and Stas Shvabrin: so many good-byes, changes and renovations.
Jansy Mello
De: Vladimir Nabokov Forum [mailto:NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU] Em nome de Brian Boyd
Enviada em: quarta-feira, 16 de março de 2016 15:56
Para: NABOKV-L@LISTSERV.UCSB.EDU
Assunto: Re: [NABOKV-L] Stephen Jan Parker
Dear Nablers,
The sad news has come in that Professor Stephen Jan Parker died on Tuesday. A former student of Nabokov’s at Cornell, the first to write a PhD on him, and a long-serving Professor of Russian and head of his department at the University of Kansas, Lawrence, he became a friend of the family, especially Dmitri. He founded The Nabokovian and the International Nabokov Society in 1978. He was also co-organizer of the first Nabokov conference (Cornell, 1983), author of Understanding Nabokov, co-editor of The Achievement of Vladimir Nabokov, and author of many articles, bibliographic updates and Nabokovian news items. He kept the Nabokov community informed and together in pre-Internet days and continued to serve the Nabokovs and Nabokovians, through The Nabokovian and in other ways until 2013. Institutionalised with dementia over a year ago, he was recently found to have an obstruction in his digestive tract that would have required radical surgery from which his chances of recovery were slim, so his family (his wife, Marie-Luce, and his son and daughter) opted not to put him through it.
Brian Boyd
All private editorial communications are read by both co-editors.