Did you read "Reading Lolita in Tehran"? Do you know the Nabokov story "The Magician's Room"?

Question

Azar Nafisi's book "Reading Lolita in Tehran" mentions a short story by Vladimir Nabokov, called "The Magician's Room" (according to Nafisi on page 33 of RLIT, Nabokov originally wanted to call the story "The Underground Man"). I can't find an English translation of this story anywhere, or even any other evidence of its existence. Is it possible this story was written in Russian and translated to Farsi, but not English? Where might I be able to find an English translation of this story?

Answer 1

If you read at the bottom of page 34, you will see that Nafisi says that the magician did not exist, at least not in fiction.  I take that to mean, she was telling the story of a real person in Tehran, but pretendning that it was a story by Nabokov. Earlier Nafisi also describes herself as inventing and shaping the story.   (I haven't read the book, so perhaps there is more to the story -- but it explains why you cannot find any reference to such a story by Nabokov.  It doesn't exist.)