Publisher's Synopsis
Boris Pasternak's masterpiece, Doctor Zhivago, has sold in the millions, and yet the true story behind its two famed lovers has been lost to history.When Stalin came into power in 1924, the Communist government began persecuting dissident writers. Though Stalin spared the life of Boris--whose novel-in-progress, Doctor Zhivago, was suspected of being anti-Soviet--he persecuted Boris' mistress, typist, and literary muse, Olga Ivinksaya. Olga was twice sentenced to work in Siberian labor camps, where she was interrogated about the book Boris was writing, but she refused to betray the man she loved. When Olga was released from the gulags, she assumed that Boris would leave his wife for her but, trapped by his family's expectations and his own weak will, he never did.Drawing on previously neglected family sources and original interviews, Boris' great-niece, Anna Pasternak, explores this hidden act of moral compromise by her great-uncle, and restores to history the passionate affair that inspired and animated Doctor Zhivago. Devastated that Olga suffered on his behalf and frustrated that he could not match her loyalty to him, Boris instead channeled his thwarted passion for Olga into the love story in his classic work.Filled with the rich detail of Boris' secret life, Lara unearths a moving love story of courage, loyalty, suffering, drama, and loss, and casts a new light on the legacy of Doctor Zhivago.
