Boris Pasternak

Awarded for

Achievement in modern lyric poetry and in the Russian novel tradition

The story behind the prize

Doctor Zhivago follows a doctor-poet through the Russian Revolution and civil war. Refused publication in the USSR, it was smuggled out and first published in Italy in 1957. After the prize, a Soviet campaign against him forced him to decline it; his son accepted the medal in 1989.

About

Russian poet and novelist whose novel Doctor Zhivago was banned in the Soviet Union.

Exam facts

• Forced by the Soviet authorities to decline the prize