Why Boris Pasternak turned down the Nobel

Yesterday was the sixty-second anniversary of when Russian writer Boris Pasternak declined the Nobel Prize for Literature.

The author of Doctor Zhivago had previously told the Nobel committee that he was “immensely thankful” for it, but it took just four days for Soviet pressure to prompt him to turn down the prize.

Literary Hub takes a look back at the tensions between Pasternak and his country and the resentment that lingered after he refused the Nobel.

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