Boris Pasternak

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (1890–1960) was a Russian poet, novelist, and translator born in Moscow to a prominent Jewish family. He gained fame for his revolutionary poetry collection My Sister, Life and is best known internationally for his novel Doctor Zhivago, which was smuggled out of the USSR and published abroad due to its anti-Soviet themes. Pasternak was awarded the 1958 Nobel Prize in Literature for his achievements in lyrical poetry and the Russian epic tradition but was forced by Soviet authorities to decline it.