Novel
Pnin
Vladimir Nabokov · 1957
Synopsis
Timofey Pavlovich Pnin, a Russian émigré professor of about fifty, teaches his native language at Waindell College in the United States. Setting off to give a lecture to a women's club in Cremona, he boards the wrong train, then realises he has lost the suitcase that contains his papers. The book follows, episode by episode, his efforts to put down roots in America, amid language blunders and memories of Russia, and returns to his former wife, Liza Wind, and her son, Victor.
Context
Several chapters first appeared in The New Yorker magazine before the book was published in 1957. Waindell College is modelled on Cornell, where the author taught. The story is told by a narrator, Vladimir Vladimirovich, a Russian-American entomologist whose reliability is called into question as the book proceeds. The French translation by Michel Chrestien appeared from Gallimard in 1962 and is available in Folio.
Who it is for
A short novel made up of episodes, tender and funny, for those who like portraits of exiles and American campuses.
Prizes and reception
The book was nominated for the 1958 National Book Award, the first of the author's seven nominations.
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