A leading poet of his generation, Boris Pasternak wrote only one novel. Set against the tumultuous backdrop of the Russian Revolution, Doctor Zhivago is the epic story of Yuri Zhivago, a poet and musician who finds himself caught in the battle between the Bolshevik Red Army and the anti-communist Whites, and torn between the two women he loves. One of the greatest love stories ever told, it is also a depiction of Russia?s suffering and courage through revolutions, war and the purges of the Soviet regime. The novel was smuggled out of Russia and first published in Italian in 1957, and was immediately acclaimed as a masterpiece in the West. However, the freedom promised in the novel contrasts grimly with the fate of its writer: threatened with disgrace and exile, Boris Pasternak was finally denounced as an enemy of the people.