Philippine E-Journals

Boris Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago: A Return To Tradition

Kevin D

Discipline: Cultural Studies

 

Abstract:

The clamor raised by the publication of Boris Pasternak's Nobel Prize winning novel, Doctor Zhivago, in early 1957, was an event not often witnessed in the literary annals of our times. In the novel's first printing, 250,000 copies of the Italian translation were sold. Adding to the intense interest in the novel were the rather sensational circumstances under which it came to be published. It will be recalled that the novel was scored by Soviet censors as objectionable on at least ten counts. But the novel soon found its way into the hands of an Italian publisher, Giangiacoma Feltrinelli, and from thence was translated into the major languages of the world and was soon being sold over the counters of the world's bookstores.