Pnin is Vladimir Nabokov's fourth novel in English, published in 1957. Timofey Pavlovich Pnin is a Russian émigré, a professor of Russian and literature at a fictional university in upstate New York. Pnin is late for his lectures, misses trains, and when he finally arrives on time, he finds himself in a half-empty classroom. For nine years, he has held the position of assistant professor, but he has never managed to fit in with the university environment: there is no promotion in sight, his colleagues dislike him, and his students even less so.

Pnin continues the line of 'little men' of Russian literature. But, like any little man, Pnin suffers a great sorrow. Abandoned and forever lost Russia haunts him in his dreams and waking life, capturing his consciousness with visions of true and false, true memories and nightmarish conjectures. This novel is yet another of Nabokov's odes to a past that is irrevocably gone.