Stalin's scribe : literature, ambition, and survival : the life of Mikhail Sholokhov

Summary: "Mikhail Sholokhov is one of the most contested recipients of the Nobel Prize in Literature in the history of the award. As a young man Sholokhov's epic Quiet Flows the Don--originally Quiet Don--became an unprecedented overnight success. Yet he struggled to complete a second novel for Stalin and his feud with Boris Pasternak made international headlines. Rich with intrigue and set during the most tumultuous years of the Soviet Union, [this book] is the first-ever biography of a man who was one of his country's most prominent political figures. Thanks to the opening of Russia's archives, historian Brian Boeck discovers that Sholokhov's official Soviet narrative is actually a web of legends, half-truths, and contradictions. Boeck deftly examines the complex connection between an author and a dictator, revealing how a Stalinist courtier became an ideological acrobat and consummate politician in order to stay in favor and remain relevant after the dictator's death. This remarkable biography both reinforces and challenges our understanding of the Soviet system. Boeck reveals a Sholokhov who is bold, uncompromising, and sympathetic, and then reconciles him with the vindictive and mean-spirited man described in so many accounts of late Soviet history. At the height of the Great Terror, which claimed over one million lives, Sholokhov became a member of the most minuscule subset of the Soviet Union's population--the handful of individuals whom Stalin personally intervened to save. Stalin's Scribe explores the nuances of the man who once held a nation in literary thrall and who has remained one of world literature's most contentious ciphers."--Dust jacket.