SOURCE: “The Last Interview,” in Vladimir Nabokov, His Life, His Work, His World: A Tribute, edited by Peter Quennell, 1977. Reprint by William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1980, pp. 119-25.

The following is a British Broadcasting Company transcript of Nabokov's last interview in 1977.

We arrived in February. Wintry laurels and the bare willow trees made the path at the side of the lake seem melancholy, and there was a curious feeling of taking a walk in an old photograph. We were calling on Nabokov to let him know we were there, and also to tell him he'd given us rather short measure. The Nabokov interview (on this occasion for The Book Programme on Bbc2) is an entirely structured affair: the questions are sent a fortnight or so before the event, the answers are composed and returned, and then all you have to do is get in front of a camera...