Skip to product information
1 of 1

Anagrama

The defense

The defense

Our Review

If Stefan Zweig made your heart race with "The Royal Game," Vladimir Nabokov will blow your mind. Before writing "Lolita," Nabokov penned this gem (his third novel) where chess is not just a game, it's a pathology. The protagonist, Luzhin, is a socially maladjusted genius who only understands the world through the 64 squares of the chessboard.

What's fascinating about this book is how Nabokov pulls you inside that mind: you reach a point where you, too, begin to see life as patterns of attack and defense, losing touch with reality.

It's a demanding but hypnotic read, full of the author's typical butterfly prose: beautiful, ironic, and cruel. At Casa Drojan, we recommend reading it right after Zweig's to see both sides of the same coin: survival vs. self-destruction.

Book Details

Synopsis

Luzhin is a misunderstood and lonely child who finds in chess his refuge and his ruin. He quickly becomes a Grandmaster, a prodigy capable of seeing moves invisible to others. But the price of his gift is high: chess begins to invade his daily life. For Luzhin, social relationships, love, and the city itself transform into hostile moves from which he must protect himself. The Luzhin Defense narrates his desperate struggle to find a strategy that will allow him to survive not only his opponents in the tournament, but life itself, which threatens to checkmate him.

About the author

Vladimir Nabokov (St. Petersburg, 1899 - Montreux, 1977) is one of the greatest stylists in world literature. Russian by birth and naturalized American, he wrote his first works in Russian (like this one) and later ones in English. A butterfly hunter, synesthetic, and literature professor, he is world-renowned for Lolita, although many critics consider works such as Pale Fire or Ada or Ardor to be unsurpassed pinnacles of narrative.

Technical Specifications

  • Author: Vladimir Nabokov

  • Publisher: Anagrama 

  • Binding: Paperback 

  • Pages: 261

  • Edition: 2025

Regular price €13,21 EUR
Regular price €13,90 EUR Sale price €13,21 EUR
Sale Sold out
Tax included. Shipping calculated at checkout.
Please select a gift wrap

Escribe aquí tu nota especial (Opcional):

View full details

Our Philosophy

Reading and book selection

Our philosophy is very simple: we read and select every title we offer for sale.