Doctor Zhivago
by Boris Pasternak
Summary
Physician and poet Yuri Zhivago's life is torn apart by the Russian Revolution and the ensuing civil war, his devotion to his wife colliding with his passionate love for the nurse Lara amid the chaos and violence sweeping across the country. Pasternak smuggled the manuscript out of the Soviet Union for publication abroad after Soviet censors banned it at home, turning the novel into a Cold War flashpoint as much as a literary event. The book's sweeping romanticism and political daring made it an international sensation.
Historical Context & Significance
Soviet authorities forced Pasternak to decline the Nobel Prize in Literature the following year under threat of exile, an author level honor that in any case was never awarded for this specific novel alone. The book could not even be published in Pasternak's own country until decades later, well after his death.