Career
He was a Fellow of the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin from to 1998, and Visiting Professor at Stanford University in 2002. From to 2006 he was a Fellow of the Carl Friedrich von Siemens Stiftung. His book The Two Lolitas, as well as two articles in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and The Times Literary Supplement the previous year, argued that Vladimir Nabokov"s 1955 novel Lolita was most likely based on an until-then little known 1916 short story by author Heinz von Lichberg, also titled Lolita and featuring an identical theme.
The discovery received strong attention by literary critics and the world press
Maar did not himself accuse Nabokov of plagiarism, but suggested it was a case of cryptomnesia, arguing that Nabokov and Lichberg lived in the same part of Berlin for several years in the 1920s and 1930s and that Lichberg"s 1916 book (a collection of short stories) was easily available at the time. His father is the author Zwischen Belle Époque und Moderne (Herausgeber und Kommentar).