authors discussion and recommendation thread

Apparently, Vladimir Nabokov was not a fan of Jane Austen. Here are his takes on her:

Nabokov's wife Véra was his strongest supporter and assisted him throughout his lifetime, but Nabokov admitted to having a "prejudice" against women writers. He wrote to Edmund Wilson, who had been making suggestions for his lectures: "I dislike Jane Austen, and am prejudiced, in fact against all women writers. They are in another class." But after rereading Austen's Mansfield Park he changed his mind and taught it in his literature course; he also praised Mary McCarthy's work and described Marina Tsvetaeva as a "poet of genius" in Speak, Memory.  Although Véra worked as his personal translator and secretary, he made publicly known that his ideal translator would be male, and especially not a "Russian-born female".