Boris Leonidovich Pasternak was a Russian novelist, poet and translator. His ‘My Sister, Life’, a collection of his poetries published in 1917, remains one of the most remarkable books on poetries in Russian. Some of his other notable works on poetry are ‘Twin in the Clouds’, ‘On Early Trains’, ‘Selected Poems’ and ‘When the Weather Clears’. He translated many stage plays that were highly acknowledged by Russian audiences. Some such works are that of William Shakespeare, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Pedro Calderón de la Barca and Friedrich Schiller. As the author of the novel ‘Doctor Zhivago’, he became renowned internationally. The novel revolved around the Russian Revolution of 1905 and World War I. The novel was denied publication in USSR because of its free-spirited viewpoint on the socialist state. However, it was published after being smuggled to Milan. ‘Doctor Zhivago’ became a best-seller internationally but in USSR it was sold secretly. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958, but had to forgo the award as the ‘Communist Party of the Soviet Union’ was embarrassed by such move and also showed its resentment. Later in 1988 Pasternak’s descendents accepted the award.
