“An eerie, enchanted night. Full moon. The devil has just returned from a grand ball held in his honor. He is accompanied by his retinue, among them a red-headed succubus; a giant talking cat, Behemoth; and the devil’s date at the ball, a naked woman he has abducted named Margarita. They gather in a Moscow apartment and prepare to have supper. A candelabra flickers; the fireplace roars. The succubus slinks. The devil sits on the edge of his bed in a nightshirt. Behemoth spreads mustard on an oyster.” So writes Nathaniel Rich in Guernica about this novel.

This was 1929 Moscow. The most evil time in Russia, marked by coercion and fear. People either wanted to disappear or resort to anything to save themselves. There was lie. There was deceit. There were no morals. There was no spirituality. Only desperation.

Things go awry further when a “mysterious stranger (the Devil) arrives in town “with a bizarre entourage that includes a giant talking cat and a fanged assassin”. In this labyrinth a repressed writer, the Master, gets entangled along with his beloved, Margarita. The Devil manipulates both the Master and Margarita, his muse, setting off a series of events that are adventurous and though-provoking.

The key setting for The Master & Margarita was apartment 50 in the Art Nouveau building in central Moscow where the author and his wife lived for several years. Mikhail Bulgakov, who was described in the official Big Soviet Encyclopedia as a slanderer of Soviet reality, wrote the novel between 1928 and 1940. However, it wasn't published until 1966.

It is said that Bulgakov burned the original manuscript in a stove but his wife preserved the manuscript, which was then published, reprinted, performed in theatre, and made into movies and television series.

Published in 1966. Translated from the Russian by Michael Glenny, published in 1967.