Boris Pasternak

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (Russian: Бори́с Леони́дович Пастерна́к, 1890-1960) was a Russian and Soviet poet, novelist and literary translator. Born in Moscow to the painter Leonid Pasternak and the pianist Rosalia Kaufman, he first made his name as a poet with My Sister, Life (1922) and supported himself for years translating Shakespeare and Goethe into Russian.

His novel Doctor Zhivago, refused publication at home, appeared in Italy in 1957 and became a bestseller in the West while circulating in the Soviet Union only in samizdat until 1987. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958 and was forced by Soviet pressure to decline it. He died at Peredelkino in 1960.