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 ...
Read More
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 of Doctor 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 Couvee 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.) "
Read Less
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Very good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Fine in fine dust jacket. Sewn binding. Paper over boards. With dust jacket. 352 pg. Audience: General/trade. Book is straight, tight and clean text. Bookstore price sticker on back dust jacket. First Edition. First Print 2014.
Choose your shipping method in Checkout. Costs may vary based on destination.
Seller's Description:
Stated First Edition, first printing with full number line in fine / like new condition. The pages are clean and crisp with no bent corners. Boards are as new, and the spine is square and tight. The dust jacket is clean and undamaged. The book is in excellent condition with an unclipped DJ, and no remainder mark. All items guaranteed, and a portion of each sale supports social programs in Los Angeles. Ships from CA.
