RICHARD PEVEAR

One Spring afternoon the Devil, trailing fire and chaos in his wake, weaves himself out of the shadows and into Moscow in Bulgakov's fantastical, funny and frightening satire of Soviet life. Written in secret during the darkest days of Stalin's reign, when it was finally published it became an overnight literary phenomenon, signalling artistic freedom for Russians everywhere.

The narrator and protagonist of Dostoevskys novel The Adolescent (first published in English as A Raw Youth) is Arkady Dolgoruky, a nave 19-year-old boy bursting with ambition and opinions. The illegitimate son of a dissipated landowner, he is torn between his desire to expose his fathers wrongdoing and the desire to win his love. He travels to St. Petersburg to confront the father he barely knows, inspired by an inchoate dream of communion and armed with a mysterious document that he believes gives him power over others. This new English version by the most acclaimed of Dostoevskys translators is a masterpiece of pathos and high comedy.

One Spring afternoon the Devil, trailing fire and chaos in his wake, weaves himself out of the shadows and into Moscow in Bulgakovs fantastical, funny and frightening satire of Soviet life. Brimming with magic and incident, it is full of imaginary, historical, terrifying and wonderful characters, from witches, poets and Biblical tyrants to the beautiful, courageous Margarita, who will do anything to save the imprisoned writer she loves. Written in secret during the darkest days of Stalins reign, when The Master and Margarita was finally published it became an overnight literary phenomenon, signalling artistic freedom for Russians everywhere.