Pnin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov
 The book's eponymous protagonist, Timofey Pavlovich Pnin, is a Russian-born professor living in the United States. Pnin, a refugee in his 50s from both Communist Russia and what he calls the "Hitler war", is an assistant professor of Russian at fictional Waindell College, possibly modeled on Wellesley College or Cornell University, at both of which Nabokov himself taught. At Waindell, Pnin has settled down to an uncertain, untenured, but semi-respectable academic life, full of various tragicomic mishaps, misfortunes, and difficulties adjusting to American life and language. Characters in the book include his departmental supervisor, various professors and university staff, his landlord, his ex-wife, and her son. The book's seemingly unreliable narrator identifies himself as one 'Vladimir Vladimirovich N---' and bears similarities to Nabokov himself, such as his interest in lepidoptery and his landed-gentry Russian émigré past. Pnin is last glimpsed fleeing Waindell College, jobless, for an unknown destination.