Nabokov in America
 

23
 

nals. He soon gained a reputation as one of the outstanding Rus¬
sian emigre writers of the younger generation, but it was difficult
for him, as it was for many others, to earn lasting fame in exile,
not to mention a decent living. The name he usually published
 

Nabokov row ing on the Cam in 1910.

under in this period was V^. Sirin. Some years later, while dis¬
cussing emigre writers of the 1920s and 1930s in his memoirs,
Speak, Me7nory, he noted ironically about himself: "But the au¬
thor that interested me most was naturally Sirin. He belonged to
my generation. Among the young writers produced in exile he
was the loneliest and most arrogant one."