A poet, translator, and novelist, Boris Pasternak was born in Moscow in 1890. In 1958 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature but, facing threats from Soviet authorities, refused the prize. He lived in virtual exile in an artists' community near Moscow until his death in 1960.

The story of Yuri Zhivago, physician and poet, is both a panoramic, epic portrait of a country in the throes of the most radical revolution in history, and an intense love story.