Safe Conduct: An Autobiography and Other Writings - Softcover

Pasternak, Boris

Softcover

ISBN 10: 081120135X ISBN 13: 9780811201353

Publisher: New Directions, 2009

Synopsis

Experimental in its category, Boris Pasternak’s first autobiography, originally published after the great success of his Dr. Zhivago.

The awarding of the 1958 Nobel Prize for Literature to Boris Pasternak and the subsequent calumny of his fellow citizens in Soviet Russia focused unusual attention on Pasternak's great novel, Dr. Zhivago, and the small body of his other work. At the time, the latter was only available (in any language, as far as is known) in New Directions' Selected Writings of Pasternak, first published in 1949. The 1958 edition was issued with a new introduction by Babette Deutsch under the title of the book's main component, Pasternak's autobiography.

Written when he was forty, Safe Conduct puzzled many readers in Russia and when it appeared in English, because its isolated sharp impressions and juxtapositions seem to deny chronology, but at least one critic recognized it as "the most original of autobiographies, employing a new technique of great important."

Also included is a group of remarkable short stories, translated by Robert Payne, dealing with the mysteries of life and art, and a selection of the poems that have made Pasternak known, to the few at last, as the "outstanding Russian poet of the century." these are translated by the British Critic and poet C. M. Bowra, and by Miss Deutsch.

About this title

About the Authors

Boris Leonidovich Pasternak (February, 1890 ― May, 1960) was a Nobel Prize-winning Soviet Russian poet and writer. In the West he is best known for the epic novel Doctor Zhivago, a tragedy, whose events span through the last period of Tsarist Russia and early days of Soviet Union. Pasternak was brought up in a highly cosmopolitan atmosphere, and visitors to his home included pianist and composer Sergei Rachmaninoff, poet Rainer Maria Rilke, and writer Leo Tolstoy.


Babette Deutsch (1859–1982) was a poet, critic, and novelist, as well as a translator.

From the Back Cover

This book puzzled many readers in Russia and when it appeared in English, because it isolated sharp impressions and its juxtapositions seemed to deny chronology, but at least one critic recognized it as 'the most original of autobiographies, employing a new technique of great importance.'

Edition details

• Publisher: New Directions
• Publication date: 2009
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 081120135X
• ISBN 13: 9780811201353
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256