A master class in satire, this hilarious novel depicts the devil arriving in Moscow and wreaking (mostly harmless) havoc on the stuffy literary elite with his crew, which includes a giant vodka-drinking, talking cat demon.
Mikhail Bulgakov originally wrote The Master and Margarita during Stalin’s regime in 1930s Russia, but due to censorship, the novel wasn’t published until the ’60s. A master class in satire, this hilarious novel depicts the devil arriving in Moscow and wreaking (mostly harmless) havoc on the stuffy literary elite with his crew, which includes a giant vodka-drinking, talking cat demon. Bulgakov wrote his own literary censorship challenges into the novel through the story of Master and his lover, Margarita, ultimately showing that free speech cannot be oppressed.