The Adolescence of Zhenya Luvers

An enthralling novelette by Boris Pasternak, the author of Dr. Zhivago, The Adolescence of Zhenya Luvers explores how a thirteen-year-old girl ceases to be a child and becomes a woman in Russia just before the Communist Revolution. The story examines the world through the reminiscences of a young girl and explores such themes as nature and how we are able to shape the world around us by how we perceive it. The novelette gives readers a prime example of Pasternak’s signature style and use of poetics, imagery, and lyricism in prose. The Adolescence of Zhenya Luvers is one of Pasternak’s very first stories, and it originally appeared in a collection by the same name, published in 1925.