Despair

'A work of rapture — jolting, hilarious and incredibly racy' Martin Amis, The Times

Self-satisfied, delighting in the many fascinating quirks of his own personality, Hermann Hermann is perhaps not to be taken too seriously. But then a chance meeting with Felix, a man he believes to be his double, reveals a frightening 'split' in Hermann's nature. Convinced that he has found his doppelgänger, Hermann uses this discovery to weave a money-making plan that leads to disguise, betrayal and eventually murder.

Filled with impudent, startling humour, and dominated by the egotistical and scornful figure of a killer who thinks himself an artist, Despair takes us into a deranged world of doubles and illusions, where nothing is quite as it seems.

• Author
• Vladimir Nabokov

• Format
• paperback

• Pages
• 176

• Series
• Penguin Modern Classics

• Publisher
• Penguin Classics

• Language
• english

• ISBN
• 978-0-14-118454-8

• EAN
• 9780141184548

• Release date
• 2000