The Master and Margarita

The Master and Margarita
Author: Mikhail Bulgakov
Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2016-03-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0802190510

Satan comes to Soviet Moscow in this critically acclaimed translation of one of the most important and best-loved modern classics in world literature. The Master and Margarita has been captivating readers around the world ever since its first publication in 1967. Written during Stalin’s time in power but suppressed in the Soviet Union for decades, Bulgakov’s masterpiece is an ironic parable on power and its corruption, on good and evil, and on human frailty and the strength of love. In The Master and Margarita, the Devil himself pays a visit to Soviet Moscow. Accompanied by a retinue that includes the fast-talking, vodka-drinking, giant tomcat Behemoth, he sets about creating a whirlwind of chaos that soon involves the beautiful Margarita and her beloved, a distraught writer known only as the Master, and even Jesus Christ and Pontius Pilate. The Master and Margarita combines fable, fantasy, political satire, and slapstick comedy to create a wildly entertaining and unforgettable tale that is commonly considered the greatest novel to come out of the Soviet Union. It appears in this edition in a translation by Mirra Ginsburg that was judged “brilliant” by Publishers Weekly. Praise for The Master and Margarita “A wild surrealistic romp. . . . Brilliantly flamboyant and outrageous.” —Joyce Carol Oates, The Detroit News “Fine, funny, imaginative. . . . The Master and Margarita stands squarely in the great Gogolesque tradition of satiric narrative.” —Saul Maloff, Newsweek “A rich, funny, moving and bitter novel. . . . Vast and boisterous entertainment.” —The New York Times “The book is by turns hilarious, mysterious, contemplative and poignant. . . . A great work.” —Chicago Tribune “Funny, devilish, brilliant satire. . . . It’s literature of the highest order and . . . it will deliver a full measure of enjoyment and enlightenment.” —Publishers Weekly

Black Snow

Black Snow
Author: Mikhail Bulgakov
Publisher: Rosetta Books
Total Pages: 187
Release: 2016-03-20
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0795348274

A comic novel about the theater world in early Soviet Russia and a “biting attack on censorship” (The Guardian, UK). From the author of The Master and Margarita, this semi-autobiographical satirical novel paints a vibrant portrait of life behind the curtains of the Russian literary and theater arenas in the early decades of the twentieth century. Maxudov is a failed novelist who, after contemplating suicide, adapts his novel into a play that—seemingly at random—is chosen to be produced at the renowned Independent Theatre. As it so often does in theater, chaos ensues—including bloodthirsty battles between the show’s two co-directors (modeled on Stanislavsky, the famed inventor of Method Acting, and his co-director) over control of the production; near-constant drama brewing between the actors; and the playwright’s own growing host of misgivings and insecurities about his place in the theatrical community. With each rehearsal turning more disastrous than the last, it becomes less and less clear whether Maxudov’s play will ever be performed at all… “A masterpiece of black comedy.” —The Irish Times

The Fatal Eggs

The Fatal Eggs
Author: Mikhail Bulgakov
Publisher: Translit Publishing
Total Pages: 112
Release: 2010-04
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0981269532

As the turbulent years following the Russian revolution of 1917 settle down into a new Soviet reality, the brilliant and eccentric zoologist Persikov discovers an amazing ray that drastically increases the size and reproductive rate of living organisms. At the same time, a mysterious plague wipes out all the chickens in the Soviet republics. The government expropriates Persikov's untested invention in order to rebuild the poultry industry, but a horrible mix-up quickly leads to a disaster that could threaten the entire world. This H. G. Wells-inspired novel by the legendary Mikhail Bulgakov is the only one of his larger works to have been published in its entirety during the author's lifetime. A poignant work of social science fiction and a brilliant satire on the Soviet revolution, it can now be enjoyed by English-speaking audiences through this accurate new translation. Includes annotations and afterword.

Mikhail Bulgakov

Mikhail Bulgakov
Author: Marietta Chudakova
Publisher: Glagoslav Publications
Total Pages: 855
Release: 2019-08-30
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1784379824

Marietta Chudakova is an expert on Soviet literature and on the works of Mikhail Bulgakov in particular. Her biography of Bulgakov was first published in 1988 and remains the most authoritative and comprehensive study of the writer’s life ever produced. It has received acclaim for the journalistic style in which it is written: the author draws on unpublished manuscripts and early drafts of Bulgakov’s novels to bring the writer to life. She also explores archive documents and memoirs written by some of Bulgakov’s contemporaries so as to construct a comprehensive and nuanced portrait of the writer and his life and times. Marietta Chudakova casts light on Bulgakov’s life with an unrivalled eye for detail and a huge amount of affection for the writer and his works. Mikhail Bulgakov: The Life and Times will be of particular interest to international researchers studying Mikhail Bulgakov’s life and works, and is recommended to a broader audience worldwide. Translated from the Russian by Huw Davies Published by arrangement with ELKOST Intl. Literary Agency Published with the support of the Institute for Literary Translation, Russia Introduction by J.A.E. Curtis Proofreading by Kevin Bridge Publishers Maxim Hodak & Max Mendor

Morphine (New Directions Pearls)

Morphine (New Directions Pearls)
Author: Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov
Publisher: New Directions Publishing
Total Pages: 65
Release: 2013-09-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0811221695

From the author of The Master and Margarita comes this short and tragic masterpiece about drug addiction Young Dr. Bromgard has come to a small country town to assume a new practice. No sooner has he arrived than he receives word that a colleague, Dr. Polyakov, has fallen gravely ill. Before Bromgard can go to his friend’s aid, Polyakov is brought to his practice in the middle of the night with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and, barely conscious, gives Bromgard his journal before dying. What Bromgard uncovers in the entries is Polyakov’s uncontrollable and merciless descent into morphine addiction — his first injection to ease his back pain, the thrill of the drug as it overtakes him, the looming signs of addiction, and the feverish final entries before his death.

Manuscripts Don't Burn

Manuscripts Don't Burn
Author: Julie A. E. Curtis
Publisher: Bloomsbury UK
Total Pages: 336
Release: 1991
Genre: Authors' spouses
ISBN:

In his own lifetime, Russian novelist and playwright Mikhail Bulgakov was scarcely published. A quarter of a century after his death, his novel, "The Master and the Margarita", has become a worldwide bestseller.;In this book, J.A.E. Curtis presents a chronicle of Bulgakov's life. She is the only Westerner to have been granted access to either his or his wife's diaries which record the nightmarish precariousness of life during the Stalinist purges. She combines this with extracts from letters to and from Bulgakov and with her own commentary. She also includes letters to Stalin, in which Bulgalov pleads to be allowed to emigrate; letters to his siblings; intimate notes to his second and third wives; and letters to and from other writers such as Gorky and Zamyatin.

The White Guard

The White Guard
Author: Mikhail Bulgakov
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Total Pages: 109
Release: 2010-09-16
Genre: Performing Arts
ISBN: 0571271146

See? All we need is... a map and...some kind of plan. This overcoat is neutral darling, neither Bolshevik nor Menshevik. Just essence of Prole. In Kiev during the Russian Civil War, the Turbin household is sanctuary to a ragtag, close-knit crowd presided over by the beautiful Lena. As her brothers prepare to fight for the White Guard, friends charge in from the riotous streets amidst an atmosphere of heady chaos, quaffing vodka, keeling over, declaiming, taking baths, playing guitar, falling in love. But the new regime is poised and in its brutal triumph lies destruction for the Turbins and their world. And those are the real enemies we face, deep in the shadows. This modern man with no name, no past, no love. This desperate hate-filled man born of loneliness and frustration. This man with nothing to be proud of, nothing he is part of. . .

Diaboliad

Diaboliad
Author: Mikhail Bulgakov
Publisher: Rosetta Books
Total Pages: 89
Release: 2016-03-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0795348282

“Bulgakov’s strong point was his ability to amplify the roots of man’s dementia, the howls of political pandemonium . . . a lively collection.” —The Washington Post Book World Mikhail Bulgakov’s Diaboliad and Other Stories, comprised of Diaboliad, No. 13–The Elpit Workers’ Commune, A Chinese Tale, and The Adventures of Chichikov, serves as an excellent introduction to this renowned Russian satirist and playwright’s work. Black comedy, biting social and political commentary, and Bulgakov’s unique narrative exuberance combine to tell the tales of labyrinthine post-Revolution bureaucracy; clashes between science, the intellectual class, and the state; and the high price to be paid for the promised utopian world of Communism in early Soviet Russia. Bulgakov’s signature eloquent skewering of the various shortcomings of the world around and within him can be found on every page, and horror and magic interweave in a constant dance of the absurd—a dance that would reach its highest point both stylistically and thematically in Bulgakov’s tour de force novel The Master and Margarita. “One of the most original voices of the twentieth century.” —The Guardian, UK

The Master & Margarita

The Master & Margarita
Author: Mikhail Bulgakov
Publisher: Rosetta Books
Total Pages: 448
Release: 2016-03-22
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0795348398

Satan, Judas, a Soviet writer, and a talking black cat named Behemoth populate this satire, “a classic of twentieth-century fiction” (The New York Times). In 1930s Moscow, Satan decides to pay the good people of the Soviet Union a visit. In old Jerusalem, the fateful meeting of Pilate and Yeshua and the murder of Judas in the garden of Gethsemane unfold. At the intersection of fantasy and realism, satire and unflinching emotional truths, Mikhail Bulgakov’s classic The Master and Margarita eloquently lampoons every aspect of Soviet life under Stalin’s regime, from politics to art to religion, while interrogating the complexities between good and evil, innocence and guilt, and freedom and oppression. Spanning from Moscow to Biblical Jerusalem, a vibrant cast of characters—a “magician” who is actually the devil in disguise, a giant cat, a witch, a fanged assassin—sow mayhem and madness wherever they go, mocking artists, intellectuals, and politicians alike. In and out of the fray weaves a man known only as the Master, a writer demoralized by government censorship, and his mysterious lover, Margarita. Burned in 1928 by the author and restarted in 1930, The Master and Margarita was Bulgakov’s last completed creative work before his death. It remained unpublished until 1966—and went on to become one of the most well-regarded works of Russian literature of the twentieth century, adapted or referenced in film, television, radio, comic strips, theater productions, music, and opera.