Who is Timofey Pnin in Vladimir Nabokov’s Pnin?

Timofey Pnin is the protagonist of the 1957 novel Pnin, written by the Russian-American author Vladimir Nabokov.1

He is depicted as an older, exiled Russian professor who teaches his native language at the fictional Waindell College, located in upstate New York. The character is portrayed as a defenseless intellectual navigating the complexities of American life in a story that is both comic and tender. Additionally, Pnin reappears as a minor character in Nabokov’s later novel, Pale Fire.1