Tabs & Twists
The Master and Margarita
The devil visits Soviet Moscow with a talking cat, wrecking the lives of the city's bureaucrats, while a writer and his lover seek redemption.
- Subgenre
- SatireAllegoryMagical realism
- Setting / Period
- Soviet Moscow
- First published
- 1967
- Pages
- 384
- Language
- English
Review
A mysterious professor named Woland arrives in 1930s Moscow and begins to expose the greed and cowardice of the literary establishment. Meanwhile, the Master, an unpublished novelist, languishes in an asylum, and his lover Margarita makes a pact with the devil to save him.
Bulgakov weaves slapstick satire of Soviet life with a retelling of Pontius Pilate's encounter with Jesus. The two storylines seem unrelated until they merge beautifully, and the novel is at once absurdly funny and deeply moving.
It was written under censorship and published decades late, which adds to its poignancy. The book rewards readers who enjoy a wild imagination, and its line that "manuscripts don't burn" remains one of literature's great defiant statements.
