Bussey holds a master's degree in interdisciplinary studies and a bachelor's degree in English Literature. She is an independent writer specializing in literature. In the following essay, Bussey demonstrates that the narrator's identity as a poet is his defining characteristic, and discusses the significance this has for the story as a whole.

Vladimir Nabokov's "That in Aleppo Once . . ." is in the form of a letter from the narrator, a poet, to a friend named V., who is a fiction writer. In this letter, the narrator tells the story of his strange, brief marriage, and does so in a way that reveals the poetic nature of his thinking and writing about life. Clearly, being a poet is much more than a hobby or occupation for this man; it is his identity and it defines the way he perceives and relates to the world. His love is not the...