Duong Tuong, a revered translator, recently admitted to, and apologized for including the annotations from another book in his translated version of “Lolita”, the classic novel by Russian author Vladimir Nabokov. Tuong previously wrote in his book preface that he did all the annotations on his own.

This has created quite a stir on online forums as Tuong, who is known for his critically acclaimed translations of world classics including Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights”, Margaret Mitchell’s “Gone with the Wind” and Leo Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina”, previously told the press that he wrote all the annotations himself.

However, it was recently discovered that many of Tuong’s annotations came from “The annotated Lolita”, a book by Alfred Appel, Jr., which was published in 1970.

“Around one third of my nearly 500 annotations came from the book, which I used as one of my indispensable reference sources for my translation only,” said 81-year-old Tuong.

“I did all I could to convey the best of the original book to readers by providing annotations and referring to all kinds of materials available, though I wasn’t required to do so considering my meager pay of VND23 million (US$1,093) for two years,” elaborated Tuong, adding that he had finished translating two thirds of the original when he came across “The annotated Lolita” during a Google search, and the remaining one third became considerably easier with this book.

The translator added that he would change the sentence “all the annotations in the book are written by the translator” in the preface to his translated version to “all the annotations in the book are provided by the translator after consulting different sources, a major one of which is ‘The annotated Lolita’” in his next editions.

“However, my translated version of “Lolita” is the deserving outcome of my painstaking work and dedication,” stressed Tuong, who recently pocketed the translation award from the Hanoi Writers Association for his translation of the work.

Lolita was written in English and published in 1955 in Paris and 1958 in New York before being translated by its Russian author into Russian. The novel is famous for its controversial subject: the lead character and narrator, middle-aged literature professor and hebephile Humbert Humbert, is obsessed with 12-year-old Dolores Haze. He becomes sexually involved with her, whom he nicknames Lolita, after becoming her stepfather.

After its publication, "Lolita" quickly became one of the most popular yet controversial examples of the 20th century literature. The name “Lolita” has made it into pop culture to indicate a sexually precocious girl. The novel was also adapted into film and for stage several times.