This translation contains quotations, occasionally somewhat modified, from published translations done by Robert Baldick, Anthony Bonner, Max Brod, J. M. Cohen, Ernest Jones, Anthony Kerrigan, Terence Kilmartin, Alban Krailsheimer, H. T. Lowe-Porter, Dmitri Nabokov, Vladimir Nabokov, Sir Malcolm Pasley, Alastair Reid, Francis Steegmuller, Helen Temple, Norman Thomas di Giovanni, Ruthven Todd, J. A. Underwood, Sir Thomas Urquhart, William Weaver, Barbara Wright.
Chapters 27 and 74 of Life A User’s Manual have appeared previously, in Grand Street (New York), Autumn 1983, and in Fiction International (San Diego), 1985, in translations by Harry Mathews, which are reused here, with minor modifications, with the kind permission of the translator.
This translation is greatly indebted to Ela Bienenfeld, Eugen Helmle, Bianca Lamblin, and Harry Mathews: without their help and encouragement I would have made many more errors than I have done.
My thanks go also to all those who have answered queries, solved puzzles, and helped with the material production of this translation: Jacques Beaumatin, Alexander Bellos, Philip Bennett, Vera Brice, Graham Chesters, Julian Kinderlerer, Una Kelly, Andy Leak, Susan Lendrum, Terry Lewis, Sylvia Richardson and especially Sarah Asquith, Ruth Sharman, Dorothy Straight, and Willy Wauquaire.
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Sheffield-Manchester-Princeton