Boris Pasternak About Himself and His Readers

Extract

When my co-editor, Boris Filippov, and I were preparing our threevolume edition of Boris Pasternak’s Collected Works (published in 1961 by the University of Michigan Press) we were aware that some texts scattered in not easily obtainable publications were bound to elude us. Since then we have been able to lay our hands on some of them. Among them was an interesting short article, a copy of which was recently received by me from Moscow. I had known of its existence but could not find it anywhere in the West. It was published in the Soviet magazine Chitatel’ i pisatel’ (The Reader and the Writer), in No. 4/5, dated February 11, 1928, apparently without a title (at least the copy received by me bore no title), and therefore probably as an answer to a questionnaire addressed to writers about their current work and their relations with their public.