Pasternak is the author of "Doctor Zhivago" (1957), a novel that takes place between the Russian Revolution of 1905 and the Second World War. "Doctor Zhivago" was rejected for publication in the USSR, but the manuscript was smuggled to Italy for publication. Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1958, an event that enraged the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which forced him to decline the prize, though in 1989 his descendants were able to accept it in his name. "Doctor Zhivago" has been part of the main Russian school curriculum since 2003.