Pnin

"Pnin" (1957), the fourth English-language novel by Vladimir Nabokov, is dedicated to the life’s vicissitudes of one of the most defenseless and touching characters in 20th-century literature. A true Russian intellectual, a brilliant scholar, but a quirky and unlucky person, Timofey Pnin, who left Russia after the 1917 revolution, teaches Russian literature at an American university, where he becomes an accidental victim of intrigues and the harshness of his colleagues. Will he manage this time to escape from his cunning creator, destined to make him a martyr who must endure the blows of fate time and again? "Pnin" was published shortly after the scandalous "Lolita" and, receiving enthusiastic reviews from readers and critics, served as a kind of antithesis to the prevailing notion of Nabokov's "immorality" and "soullessness." The current edition of the novel is accompanied by a preface, notes, and a concluding essay by the translator. The features of the translator's spelling, punctuation, and transliteration have been preserved.