Author: mikhailbulgakov

A hilarious, unique, and biting satire of Soviet life during the height of Stalin’s power: It’s springtime in Moscow, and the Devil emerges from the shadows, leaving a trail of destruction and confusion. A fantastical tale with over 147,000 five-star ratings on Goodreads!

I first read Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita on a balcony of the Hotel Metropole in Saigon on three summer evenings in 1971. The tropical air was heavy and full of the smells of cordite and motorcycle exhaust and rotting fish and wood-fire stoves, and the horizon flared ambiguously, perhaps from heat lightning, perhaps from bombs. Later each night, as was my custom, I would wander out … wander out into the steamy back alleys of the city, where no one ever seemed to sleep, and crouch in doorways with the people and listen to the stories of their…