Nobel Prize ‘stolen’ by CIA

If you think the US intelligence agency, the CIA, has no interest in literature, you are very much mistaken. According to Italy’s La Stampa newspaper, it played a decisive role in giving the Nobel Prize to Russia’s Boris Pasternak, the author of Doctor Zhivago, instead of Italian writer Alberto Moravia.

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Back in 1958 the three big names in the running for the Nobel Prize were Alberto Moravia, Boris Pasternak and Denmark’s Karen Blixen. Pasternak suddenly got the support of Anders Esterling, the Academy permanent secretary. His colleagues were surprised. After all, the Russian author had already been nominated in 1946 for his novel “Doctor Zhivago”, which was forbidden in the Soviet Union. Then the opinion of Slavic expert Anton Kalgren was taken into account. He claimed Pasternak’s books are not understandable for many people.

In light of this, the Nobel Academy lost interest in Pasternak’s work. But unexpectedly in 1957 Harry Martinson described him as the most outstanding Soviet writer of the century. That, according to La Stampa, was because the West found out that “Doctor Zhivago” was banned in the author’s Motherland, making Pasternak popular again. His book became known in the West after it was smuggled out of Russia and published in Italy. More