Boris Pasternak is a Nobel Prize-winning Russian author, mainly known in his homeland as one of the finest twentieth-century Russian poets, but in the world at large almost exclusively as the author of Doktor Zhivago [Doctor Zhivago, first published in 1957].

Pasternak was born in Moscow, on 10 February 1890, into a stimulating (secular Jewish, turned Russian intelligentsia) artistic background. His father, Leonid Pasternak, was a leading painter (apart from anything else, he was the illustrator of Tolstoy’s novel Resurrection), while his mother, Rozaliia Kaufman, had been before her marriage a gifted concert pianist. Prominent art

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First published 06 May 2004

Citation: Cornwell, Neil. "Boris Pasternak". The Literary Encyclopedia. 6 May 2004.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3494, accessed 20 November 2009.]