Invitation to a Beheading cover art

Invitation to a Beheading

 Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Invitation to a Beheading

By: Vladimir Nabokov
Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £13.99

Buy Now for £13.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

Like Kafka's The Castle, Invitation to a Beheading embodies a vision of a bizarre and irrational world. In an unnamed dream country, the young man Cincinnatus C. is condemned to death by beheading for "gnostical turpitude", an imaginary crime that defies definition. Cincinnatus spends his last days in an absurd jail, where he is visited by chimerical jailers, an executioner who masquerades as a fellow prisoner, and by his in-laws, who lug their furniture with them into his cell. When Cincinnatus is led out to be executed. he simply wills his executioners out of existence. They disappear, along with the whole world they inhabit.

©1935 Vladimir Nabokov (P)2010 Audible, Inc. Absurdist Classics Dystopian Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Literary History & Criticism Russian & Soviet Science Fiction World Literature

Listeners also enjoyed...

 Mary cover art
Glory cover art
Pale Fire cover art
King, Queen, Knave cover art
The Enchanter cover art
Laughter in the Dark cover art
Mr. Vertigo cover art
Mother Night cover art
Letters to a Young Poet cover art
Light in August cover art
The Music of Chance cover art
The King in Yellow cover art
Beware of Pity cover art
Nights at the Circus cover art
The Trial [Naxos AudioBooks] cover art
The Orphan Master's Son cover art

Critic reviews

"Nabokov writes prose the only way it should be written, that is, ecstatically." (John Updike)
All stars
Most relevant
This book is perfect if you're of the kind to understand. The narrator is exceptional.

Masterpiece

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
This is strange novel, and, despite Nabakov being unaware of his work, very Kafkaesque in tone. Playful and menacing it highlights that strangely modern and ancient interplay between horror and entertainment.

Haunting and wonderfully sinister

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.