Boris Leonidovich Pasternak

Overview: First published in Italy in 1957 amidst international controversy, Doctor Zhivago is the story of the life and loves of a poet/physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Here is a masterful chronicle of its outbreak and the consequences: army revolts, irrational killings, starvation, epidemics, Communist Party inquisitions. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Zhivago finds himself...

Doctor Zhivago is a poet and surgeon. His life unfolds amidst the Russian Revolution, his guilt over his unfaithfulness to his loyal wife and his obsession with Lara, his muse, who, in turn, is victim to the wants of a powerful official.