In this introduction to the life and work of Boris Pasternak, Larissa Rudova contends that although "Doctor Zhivago" won Boris Pasternak the Nobel Prize in 1958 and made him a cold war celebrity, it alone does not reflect the breadth of his literary achievements. Here she presents a more balanced view of the writer by analyzing, in addition to this famous novel, the poetry that defined his long career and established him as one of Russia's greatest 20th-century writers. Rudova examines the influence of Russia's cultural environment on Pasternak's career and speculates on a mystery that continues to puzzle scholars - how he survived Stalin's political and cultural purges and managed to publish virtually uninterrupted. In her analyses of his poetry collections, short stories, critical essays, translations, one novel and two autobiographies, Rudova comments on Pasternak's stylistic complexity and discusses the thematics, structure and imagery that distinguish his work.
