In 1956, the world learned of the passing of a decisive figure in literary history: Sergio D’Angelo, a centenarian Italian journalist who had already carved a niche as a fearless conduit between Eastern and Western literary worlds. D’Angelo is remembered for a daring act that changed the fate of a book and, by extension, the course of modern literature. He safeguarded Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago by removing the manuscript from the Soviet Union, a bold move reported by the Italian news agency Ansa at the time. This episode highlighted the high-stakes tension between censorship and artistic expression within the USSR and the broader cultural struggle of the Cold War era.
