There was a Bill Mauldin cartoon from the time that showed a couple of Russians working in the GULAG. One was supposed to be Boris Pasternak, just after he had won the Nobel for Zhivago. The other Russian asks:"what did you do to get in here?", and Pasternak replies "I won the Nobel Prize for literature".
Pastrnak was not really imprisoned (though he was forced to "unaccept" the prize), but the cartoon is still a good one.