Short answers, pulled from the story.
Boris Pasternak was born on the 30th of May 1890 in Moscow into a wealthy Jewish family. His father Leonid Pasternak worked as a post-Impressionist painter and his mother Rosa Kaufman was a concert pianist.
In 1922 Pasternak published My Sister Life in Berlin which became an important collection in the Russian language. The book revolutionized Russian poetry and made him a model for younger poets including Osip Mandelstam and Marina Tsvetayeva.
During the 1937 trial of General Iona Yakir and Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky the Union of Soviet Writers requested all members sign statements supporting the death penalty. Pasternak refused to sign even after leadership visited him personally.
Between 1958 and 1959 the English edition spent twenty-six weeks at the top of The New York Times bestseller list. The book became an instant sensation throughout the non-Communist world upon its release in November 1957.
On the 23rd of October 1958 Boris Pasternak was announced as the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature. He later sent a second telegram on the 29th of October renouncing the award due to pressure from the Soviet government.