Anna Pasternak (born June 1967) is an international best selling British author of books and articles as well as being a frequent commentator on television and radio. Her work features regularly in just about every British national newspaper including The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail as well as in magazines such as Vanity Fair, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, and Tatler.
Early life
Pasternak was born in 1967. She is the great-granddaughter of Leonid Pasternak, the impressionist painter, and the great-niece of Nobel Prize-winning novelist Boris Pasternak, author of Doctor Zhivago. Her father is the scientist Charles Pasternak and her first cousin once removed is the literary scholar Ann Pasternak Slater (niece of Boris Pasternak).
Career
Pasternak's bestselling book, Princess in Love (1994), which sold over half a million copies worldwide, is a detailed reflection of her interviews with James Hewitt which Diana, Princess of Wales encouraged. Whilst the The Los Angeles Times said it "has few quotations and is written in the breathless style of romantic fiction, containing the supposed thoughts and feelings of Princess Diana" and Buckingham Palace called it "grubby and worthless", Diana later confirmed the affair and Pasternak was exonerated in the press when suddenly everything she had written was confirmed to be true. In 1996 the book was made into a television film.
Pasternak's 1998 novel, More Than Money Can Buy is about a man with "aspirations for money, power and rich women" working in the international shipping arena.
Beginning in 2004, Pasternak published a relationship column titled Daisy Dooley. And in 2007, she published a novel titled Daisy Dooley Does Divorce. Described as being about a "self-help junkie [who] comes to terms with divorce," it features chapters titled "Emotional Contagion", "Married Singles", and "Mr Knightly-in-shining-armour?" Kirkus Reviews said it is "worth wading through the tears for the generous helping of Daisy Dooley wisdom", The Daily Telegraph said, "A deliciously droll account of life after disillusionment, with a dramatic denouement that doesn't disappoint", and Bookloons commented that it was "A laugh out loud read", though Publishers Weekly called it a "frustrating traipse through divorcedom," concluding that "the reading experience is less than exhilarating."
In 2013, under the name Anna Wallas, Pasternak published a self-help book with her husband titled Call Off The Search.
In 2016, Pasternak published a biography of Boris Pasternak and his mistress, Olga Ivinskaya, titled Lara: The Untold Love Story That Inspired Doctor Zhivago. The Sunday Times said it was "a meticulously researched book." Shelf Awareness said "Pasternak seems to have inherited her great-uncle's talent. She writes with an intimate and lyrical simplicity that perfectly catches the volatile moods and emotions and torn allegiances of one of the literary world's most compelling love stories." NPR said "With its overview of Russian history in the mid-20th century, including the privations of World War II, the abominations of Stalin's Great Terror, and Khruschev's insufficient thaw, Lara is a chilling, upsetting reminder of what can happen when free speech is curtailed." The Observer said "It’s a story with enough romance and suffering to make a moving novel or film in its own right." The Evening Standard said "It’s a gripping if sad chapter in history and she tells it well." O Magazine said "Drawing on memoirs, histories and interviews, she has produced a fascinating and often heartbreaking double portrait. Her book, which proceeds as suspensefully as a criminal investigation, is a testament to the profound bond between writer and muse." The New York Times said that "the 'untold' in the subtitle simply isn't true" because "the story of Pasternak's affair with Olga has been told repeatedly."
In 2019, Pasternak issued legal proceedings against American author Lara Prescott, claiming that Prescott's novel The Secrets We Kept features "an astonishing number of substantial elements" taken from Lara. The ruling was mixed with the High Court finding that copyright subsisted in certain selections of events in a non-fictional historical literary work but that there had been no copying by author of a subsequent work of historical fiction. Pasternak was ordered to pay Prescott costs totalling £1M. Shortly thereafter, Pasternak filed for bankruptcy.