This is a two-part question.
First, here is a site which discusses Boris Pasternak’s refusal of his 1958 Nobel Prize in literature for Doctor Zhivago. The Soviet authorities applied “moral pressure” to get him to decline it. His girlfriend (the model for Lara) was arrested and he was apparently told he would not be permitted to return to Russia if he went to Stockholm. Nonetheless, Pasternak survived Stalin and the site indicates that Stalin liked Pasternak’s work. Is this the whole story? Is it accurate? Would you recommend Doctor Zhivago? I thought the movie was depressing and sappy.
Second, are there any wothwhile politically dissident writers whose works are currently available here but are suppressed in their native countries? I’m most interested to hear about writers in places like Afghanistan, Iraq or Iran. China is the other obvious possibility. Worldwide right now, however, it appears that censorship of written literary works (as opposed to censorship of journalists) may be at a low point (or maybe I’m just not keeping up with the Amnesty International reports). Anyway, we have a long tradition here of reading suppressed works (hey–who would bother to suppress them if they weren’t powerful) like The Gulag Archipelago and The Satanic Verses. I want to know if there’s anything like this which I should be reading right now.