Major statements by the celebrated Russian poet Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) about poetry, inspiration, the creative process and the significance of artistic/literary creativity in his own life as well as in human life altogether, are presented here in his own words (in translation) and are discussed in the extensive Commentaries and Introduction. The texts range from 1910 to 1946 and are between two and ninety pages long. There are commentaries on all the texts, as well as a final essay on Pasternak's famous novel Doctor Zhivago, which is looked at here in the light of what it says on art and inspiration. Although universally acknowledged as one of the great writers of the twentieth century, Pasternak is not yet sufficiently recognised as the highly original and important thinker that he also was. All his life he thought and wrote about the nature and significance of the experience of inspiration, though avoiding the word 'inspiration' where possible as his own views were not the conventional ones. "The Marsh of Gold" strives to make this - philosophical - aspect of his work better known, and to communicate to readers without Russian the pleasure and interest of an 'inspired' life as Pasternak experienced it.

On they went singing 'Eternal Memory', and whenever they stopped, the sound of their feet, the horses and the gusts of wind seemed to carry on their singing... Doctor Zhivago is the epic novel of Russia in the throes of revolution and one of the greatest love stories ever told. Yuri Zhivago, physician and poet, wrestles with the new order and confronts the changes cruel experience has made in him and the anguish of being torn between the love of two women.

From the acclaimed translators of War and Peace and Anna Karenina, a stunning new translation of Boris Pasternak's Nobel Prize-winning masterpiece, the first since the 1958 original. Banned in the Soviet Union until 1988, Doctor Zhivago is the epic story of the life and loves of a poet-physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Yuri Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds, and in love with the tender and beautiful nurse Lara. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky have restored the rhythms, tone, precision, and poetry of Pasternak's original, bringing this classic of world literature gloriously to life for a new generation of readers.

Introduction by John Bayley

'Not since Shakespeare has love been so fully, vividly, scrupulously and directly communicated' Sunday Times Read this stunning new translation of Boris Pasternak's Nobel Prize-winning masterpiece from Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the acclaimed translators of War and Peace and Anna Karenina. Banned in the Soviet Union until 1988, Doctor Zhivago is the epic story of the life and loves of a poet-physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Yuri Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds, and in love with the tender and beautiful nurse Lara. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky have restored the rhythms, tone, precision, and poetry of Pasternak's original, bringing this classic of world literature gloriously to life for a new generation of readers. VINTAGE CLASSICS RUSSIAN SERIES - sumptuous editions of the greatest books to come out of Russia during the most tumultuous period in its history.

Major statements by the celebrated Russian poet Boris Pasternak (1890-1960) about poetry, inspiration, the creative process and the significance of artistic/literary creativity in his own life as well as in human life altogether, are presented here in his own words (in translation) and are discussed in the extensive Commentaries and Introduction. The texts range from 1910 to 1946 and are between two and ninety pages long. There are Commentaries on all the texts, as well as a final Essay on Pasternak's famous novel "Doctor Zhivago", which is looked at here in the light of what it says on art and inspiration.Although universally acknowledged as one of the great writers of the twentieth century, Pasternak is not yet sufficiently recognised as the highly original and important thinker that he also was. All his life he thought and wrote about the nature and significance of the experience of inspiration, though avoiding the word 'inspiration' where possible as his own views were not the conventional ones. My book's purpose is (a) to make this - philosophical - aspect of his work better known, and (b) to communicate to readers without Russian the pleasure and interest of an 'inspired' life as Pasternak experienced it.

First published in Italy in 1957 amid international controversy, "Doctor Zhivago" is the story of the life and loves of a poet/physician during the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. Taking his family from Moscow to what he hopes will be shelter in the Ural Mountains, Zhivago finds himself instead embroiled in the battle between the Whites and the Reds. Set against this backdrop of cruelty and strife is Zhivago's love for the tender and beautiful Lara, the very embodiment of the pain and chaos of those cataclysmic times. Pevear and Volokhonsky masterfully restore the spirit of Pasternak's original--his style, rhythms, voicings, and tone--in this beautiful translation of a classic of world literature.

Doctor Zhivago is the epic novel of Russia in the throes of revolution and one of the greatest love stories ever told. Yuri Zhivago, physician and poet, wrestles with the new order and confronts the changes cruel experience has made in him and the anguish of being torn between the love of two women.

An enthralling novelette by Boris Pasternak, the author of Dr. Zhivago, Adolescence of Zhenya Luvers explores how a thirteen-year-old girl ceases to be a child and becomes a woman in Russia just before the Communist Revolution. The story examines the world through the reminiscences of a young girl and explores such themes as nature and how we are able to shape the world around us by how we perceive it. The novelette gives readers a prime example of Pasternak s signature style and use of poetics, imagery, and lyricism in prose. Adolescence of Zhenya Luvers is one of Pasternak s first stories, and it originally appeared in a collection by the same name published in 1925. Author: Boris (Leonidovich) Pasternak was a Russian philosopher, poet, writer, and translator. He is famous worldwide for his novel Doctor Zhivago, which won him the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1958. Born in Moscow in 1890 to a painter father and concert-pianist mother, Pasternak first pursued a formal education in musical composition at the University of Moscow, studying under the composer Scriabin. After six years, he gave up music and, following a brief stint in Germany studying philosophy, he returned to Russia to devote his life to writing. With the release of two major works of poetry My Sister Life (1922) and Themes and Variations (1923), Pasternak found himself among the leading poets in Russia. He went on to publish works of fiction, including Adolescence of Zhenya Luvers (1924), several short story collections, and an acclaimed autobiography. As his writing grew more political in the 30s and 40s, Pasternak was unable to publish his own poetry, and instead turned to translating great literary works, including his mentor Rainer Marie Rilke, into Russian. In 1957, only three years before his death, he published Doctor Zhivago to instant international acclaim and a Nobel Prize nomination. In Russia, however, the book s politics were not well received. It was banned and Pasternak was expelled from the Union of Soviet Writers. This tumultuous political spotlight forced him to decline the award. Since his death in 1960, however, Pasternak s works have grown in popularity and he remains one of the most influential Russian writers of the twentieth century.

In Russian poetry, Boris Pasternak's My Sister -- Life is the equivalent of The Waste Land, Spring and All, and Harmonium. But it is also accessible to the general reader, and belongs on a slender shelf of great love poems.

Written in the summer of 1917, the cycle of poems in My Sister -- Life concentrates on personal journeys and loves, but is permeated by the tension and promise of the impending October revolution. Pasternak is an uncompromisingly complex poetic stylist, and his meticulous attention to structure, etymology, and the phonetic qualities of words makes his poetry a formidable challenge for the translator. Mark Rudman renders Pasternak's poetic masterpiece with verve and intelligence.

Pasternak's poems, writes Rudman in his introduction, evoke "the constant movement and change that occurs from moment to moment and in hitherto unseen connection between disparate things". His unencumbered and startling perceptions of the world are dense, rich, and surreal:

In the orphaned, sleepless,

Dam universal waster
-- Groans tore from their posts,

The whirlwind dug in, abated.

A Sultry Night

Osip Mandelstam wrote, "To read the poems of Pasternak is to get one's throat clear, to fortify one's breathing....I see Pasternak's My Sister -- Life as a collection of magnificent exercises in breathing...a cure for tuberculosis. "The English version, which includes "The Highest Sickness", is a heady gust that matches the intensity and power of the Russian.