The Master and Margarita

Bulgakov’s masterpiece and one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. The Devil arrives in 1930s Moscow with a bizarre retinue and exposes the corruption and cowardice of Soviet literary society, while a parallel narrative reimagines the encounter between Pontius Pilate and Jesus.

Why Start Here

“The Master and Margarita” is the only place to start with Bulgakov because it is the work that contains everything he could do. It is a satire sharper than anything his contemporaries dared to write. It is a love story of startling tenderness. It is a philosophical novel about cowardice, creativity, and the price of telling the truth. And it is wildly, irresistibly fun.

The novel weaves together three storylines. In contemporary Moscow, a mysterious professor named Woland (who is Satan) arrives with his retinue and proceeds to terrorize the city’s smug literary establishment. In ancient Jerusalem, Pontius Pilate interrogates a wandering philosopher and makes a decision that will haunt him forever. And connecting both is the story of the Master, a writer destroyed by the system, and Margarita, who will do anything to save him.

Bulgakov worked on the novel from 1928 until his death in 1940. He burned an early draft, then started over. He knew it would never be published in his lifetime, and that knowledge freed him to write without compromise. The result is a book that feels like nothing else: anarchic, generous, and profoundly alive.

What to Expect

Expect the unexpected. The novel opens with a conversation about whether Jesus existed and within chapters escalates to magical mayhem. The tone shifts from philosophical to farcical to deeply moving, sometimes within a single page. The Pevear and Volokhonsky translation is the most widely recommended.

At 448 pages it is not a short book, but it moves with extraordinary energy. Most readers find it hard to put down.