Vladimir Nabokov´s Pale Fire, first published in 1989 is considered to be one of the first Post-modern novels in the English speaking world, primarily because of its narrative structure; the novel is written as a poem with 999-lines by the fictitious writer John Shade. Shade´s next-door neighbor, Charles Kinbote, writes the foreword and extensive commentary. As the novel constantly poses questions about the relationship between fiction and reality this novel can be argued to be a work of metafiction1, which is primarily associated with modernist literature and post-modernist literature. Nabokov uses a great deal of irony to make the reader aware of the lacking self-reflection of the main characters, and because of the lack of authentic historical references (besides the allusion to Greek mythology) this novel this is more fiction that factual. Consequently, Vladimir Nabokov's Pale Fire shows how an author can use new techniques and approaches to create a literary masterpiece, without a specific audience in mind. .
It can further be reasonable to suggest that, like Nabokov´s other works, Pale Fire is somewhat autobiographical; the lonely Charles Kinbote talks about, in suspiciously intimate detail, a certain king, Charles the Beloved, who is supposed to have ruled over the "distant northern land" of Zembla from 1936 until 1958, but was forced into exile. The fantastic imaginary world of Zembla is a very mysterious, intriguing land, which creates a bond between the reader and Kinbote as to the feelings of loneliness and isolation. .
Furthermore, it seems that Kinbote writes this tale/commentary to make him self "unforgettable" almost in the same sense that Humbert Humbert, in another famous work by Vladimir Nabokov Lolita, does. The foreword and commentary are far more extensive than the poem itself and this only underlines the fact that Charles Kinbote, the self-proclaimed King of Zembla, is trying to make the work his own.