The greatness of Pasternak's genius aside, there's one thing worth mentioning about this particular edition.

It wasn't Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago that won the Nobel prize for literature. It was his translators - including this awe-inspiring Hayward and Hariri's translation - that did it for him. In Russian, Doctor Zhivago is a rather forced and cumbersome read as Pasternak attempts to apply his principles for perfect poetry to fiction, with rather inadequate results. The outcome is a novel that most Russian readers struggle with. His English translators saved the book for him, recreating it in English so that it actually _flows_.

Don't get me wrong, Pasternak is one of the greatest poets who ever lived. The Russian original of Doctor Zhivago only proves that you can't use the same tools for prose as you do for poetry. But Hayward and Hariri did an absolutely awesome job recreating each sentence in a style that sounds effortlessly natural while staying faithful to every nuance of the original Russian text. An absolute treat and a must for every literary translator.
The greatness of Pasternak's genius aside, there's one thing worth mentioning about this particular edition. It wasn't Pasternak's Doctor Zhivago that won the Nobel prize for literature. It was his translators - including this awe-inspiring Hayward and Hariri's translation - that did it for him. In Russian, Doctor Zhivago is a rather forced and cumbersome read as Pasternak attempts to apply his principles for perfect poetry to fiction, with rather inadequate results. The outcome is a novel that most Russian readers struggle with. His English translators saved the book for him, recreating it in English so that it actually _flows_. Don't get me wrong, Pasternak is one of the greatest poets who ever lived. The Russian original of Doctor Zhivago only proves that you can't use the same tools for prose as you do for poetry. But Hayward and Hariri did an absolutely awesome job recreating each sentence in a style that sounds effortlessly natural while staying faithful to every nuance of the original Russian text. An absolute treat and a must for every literary translator.