Sixty-two years ago, Boris Pasternak was having a bad day. The Russian author had received the Nobel Prize for Literature several days before, having recently garnered international acclaim for his landmark work Doctor Zhivago, which had been published in Italy in 1957 and drew a decisively negative reaction from Soviet censors. In response, Pasternak sent … Continue reading When Boris Pasternak, under fire from Soviet authorities, turned down a Nobel Prize.