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Cover of Pnin by Vladimir Nabokov

Pnin

  • 191 pages · about 3 hours
  • First published 1957
  • 49 editions

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1 About this book

Pnin (Russian: Пнин) is Vladimir Nabokov's 13th novel and his fourth written in English; it was published in 1957. The success of Pnin in the United States helped establish Nabokov's literary reputation there. The novel's title character, Timofey Pavlovich Pnin, is a Russian-born assistant professor in his fifties who lives in the United States.

The character is believed to have been based partly on Nabokov's colleague Marc Szeftel and partly on Nabokov himself. Displaced by the Russian Revolution and what he calls the "Hitler war", Pnin teaches Russian at the fictional Waindell College, loosely based on two institutions where Nabokov taught: Cornell University and Wellesley College.

Summary adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

  • Immigrants
  • Immigrants in fiction
  • Americans in fiction
  • College teachers
  • Russian language books
  • College stories
  • Refugees
  • American fiction

2 About Vladimir Nabokov

1899–1977

Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov (Russian: Влади́мир Влади́мирович Набо́ков ; 22 April [O.S. 10 April] 1899 – 2 July 1977), also known by the pen name Vladimir Sirin (Владимир Сирин), was a Russian and American novelist, poet, translator, and entomologist. Born in Imperial Russia in 1899, Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian (1926–1938) while living in Berlin, where he met his wife, Véra Nabokov (née Slonim).

Bio adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)

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