The Zhivago Affair: The Kremlin, the CIA, and the Battle over a Forbidden Book - Hardcover

Finn, Peter; Couvee, Petra

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0307908003 ISBN 13: 9780307908001

Publisher: Pantheon Books, 2014

Synopsis

Drawing on newly declassified government files, this is the dramatic story of how a forbidden book in the Soviet Union became a secret CIA weapon in the ideological battle between East and West.

In May 1956, an Italian publishing scout took a train to a village just outside Moscow to visit Russia’s greatest living poet, Boris Pasternak. He left carrying the original manuscript of Pasternak’s first and only novel, entrusted to him with these words: “This is Doctor Zhivago. May it make its way around the world.” Pasternak believed his novel was unlikely ever to be published in the Soviet Union, where the authorities regarded it as an irredeemable assault on the 1917 Revolution. But he thought it stood a chance in the West and, indeed, beginning in Italy, Doctor Zhivago was widely published in translation throughout the world.

From there the life of this extraordinary book entered the realm of the spy novel. The CIA, which recognized that the Cold War was above all an ideological battle, published a Russian-language edition ofDoctor Zhivago and smuggled it into the Soviet Union. Copies were devoured in Moscow and Leningrad, sold on the black market, and passed surreptitiously from friend to friend. Pasternak’s funeral in 1960 was attended by thousands of admirers who defied their government to bid him farewell. The example he set launched the great tradition of the writer-dissident in the Soviet Union.

In The Zhivago Affair, Peter Finn and Petra Couvée bring us intimately close to this charming, passionate, and complex artist. First to obtain CIA files providing concrete proof of the agency’s involvement, the authors give us a literary thriller that takes us back to a fascinating period of the Cold War—to a time when literature had the power to stir the world.

(With 8 pages of black-and-white illustrations.)

About this title

Review:

"A galloping page-turner and a stark picture of a nation ruled by terror and unreason, which reads like a sinister rewrite of Alice in Wonderland" (John Carey Sunday Times)

"Packed with fascinating detail ... vibrant authenticity and calm analysis" (Claire Morrall Independent on Sunday)

"Fascinating... [Finn and Couvée] manage to shed new light on both the period and the characters involved" (Virginia Rounding Financial Times)

"A compelling, seductively written tale of Cold War censorship and paranoia" (Kate Williams Independent)

"Excellent, superbly researched, and as exciting in its way as any Cold War thriller. Pasternak himself emerges clearly and strongly in all his complexity. This was the most important literary controversy of the post-war world, and Finn and Couvée have presented it with immense care and colour. The aftermath of the affair still has resonance even now" (John Simpson)

"A galloping page-turner and a stark picture of a nation ruled by terror and unreason, which reads like a sinister rewrite of Alice in Wonderland"

"Packed with fascinating detail ... vibrant authenticity and calm analysis"

"Fascinating... [Finn and Couvée] manage to shed new light on both the period and the characters involved"

"A compelling, seductively written tale of Cold War censorship and paranoia"

"Excellent, superbly researched, and as exciting in its way as any Cold War thriller. Pasternak himself emerges clearly and strongly in all his complexity. This was the most important literary controversy of the post-war world, and Finn and Couvée have presented it with immense care and colour. The aftermath of the affair still has resonance even now"

Book Description:

The story of a forbidden book that became a symbol of freedom and rebellion in the battle between East and West.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pantheon Books
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0307908003
• ISBN 13: 9780307908001
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 352