As a schoolgirl, Lyudmila Razumova had taken a special pride in her Russian spelling and composition skills until the day she was given a particularly maddening dictation from The Defense. Feeling humiliated, but already hopelessly under the spell of the author’s magic, she set out to read everything by that mysterious offender called Nabokov. Surprisingly, there were 3 Russian novels at her school library. From then on, she could never quite break the spell. In fact, it was discovering Nabokov’s work as a teenager that inspired her to study Languages and Translation.
Lyudmila Razumova specialises in Bilingual and Translingual Writing and Self-Translation. Her doctoral thesis examines the relation between literary bilingualism and cosmopolitanism. The study uses a variety of linguistic and literary methods to analyse Vladimir Nabokov’s, Samuel Beckett’s and Nancy Huston’s writing and translation strategies. Lyudmila’s other research interests include Translation and Interpreting Studies. She co-authored Interpreter’s Companion, Russian edition(with Holly Mikkelson) and published a number of academic articles and reviews.
Currently, Lyudmila teaches Russian at King’s College London. She also works as a freelance interpreter, researcher and copywriter.
Conference presentations and publications on Vladimir Nabokov:
Conferences:
From Zembla with Love: Translations of Pale Fire and other Nabokov’s American novels into Russian. Vladimir Nabokov and Translation : Transatlantic Symposium. Lille, France-Chapel Hill, USA. May 17-18, 2018- Fall 2018
»Potted souls and dignified lakes: Particularities of Nabokov’s lexicon and cognitive frames and their effect on reception of his prose.’’ The Five Senses in Nabokov’s Work: International Conference organised by the French Vladimir Nabokov Society, April 28-May 1, 2016, Biarritz, France
“Polyvalence of Self-translation in Vladimir Nabokov’s Work”. Collaborative Translation and Self-Translation. Workshop funded by CEELBAS under the auspices of the Birmingham Centre for Translation, January 23, 2016, Birmingham, UK.
“Self-Translation in Translingual Writing.” Autotraduction: Frontières de la langue et de la culture. Université de Perpignan, France. October 20-22, 2011
“ImagiNation in Translingual Writing: Language and National Identity in
Beckett’s Comment c’est/How It is and Nabokov’s Pale Fire.” Eighth International Symposium on Bilingualism. Oslo, Norway, June 15-18, 2011
“Life Everlasting Based on a Mistake: Vicissitudes of Poetry in Nabokov’s Prose.” Transformation, Translation, Transportation: Third Annual Graduate Poetry Symposium. Princeton University, May 12, 2007
Publications, Theses:
“Developing Transnational Style: Particularities of Nabokov’s Lexicon and Cognitive Frames in Dar (The Gift) in Relation to the Five Senses. Chapter 5 in Nabokov and the Five Senses. Palgrave MacMillan (in print).
“Self-translation in Translingual Writing.” In L’Autotraduction aux frontières de la langue et de la culture, 2013, 185-193.
Literary Bilingualism as Cosmopolitan Practice: Vladimir Nabokov, Samuel Beckett, and Nancy Huston. PhD Dissertation. Stony Brook University, 2010.
Особенности авторского перевода В. Набокова (“Камера Обскура” и Laughter in the Dark)- Peculiarities of Nabokov’s Self-Translation, Specialist thesis, Yekaterinburg Institute of International Relations, 1999.