The son of the late Russian author Boris Pasternak received his father's Nobel literature prize Saturday, 31 years after it was awarded.
Soviet officials forced the writer to refuse the prize when it was awarded to him in 1958 for his celebrated novel, "Doctor Zhivago." He died in 1960.A few days ago, Soviet authorities granted his 66-year-old son, Yevgeny Pasternak, permission to travel to Stockholm to collect the prize.
"Never, ever did I think this could happen ... but the perestroika is so fast sometimes," Pasternak's son was quoted as saying by the national news agency TT. Perestroika is Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev's program of political and social reform.
The prize ceremony was held in the Nobel Hall in Stockholm's Bourse House.
Pasternak completed Doctor Zhivago in 1955, but the epic of upheaval in 20th century Russia was banned in his homeland. It was first published in Italy in 1957 and only last year in the Soviet Union.
"This is a worthy ending of a tragedy . . . and I am very happy," the writer's son told the audience when he received the Nobel medal.