Bulgakov: His Life and Work

Mikhail Bulgakov was one of the heroes of twentieth century fiction, and his novel The Master and Margarita is a masterpiece that continues to find a new and devoted readership with every passing generation. Over seventy years after his death, Bulgakov is both the most widely adored and critically acclaimed writer of the Soviet era. As the critic Donald Rayfield has written, "nobody could render the intervention of the demonic into a corrupt and degraded world so comically and so frighteningly as Bulgakov did in his two major novels (Black Snow and The Master and Margarita) and his short stories and plays."

Ellendea Proffer’s major biography, Bulgakov, captures both the spirited, idiosyncratic, haunted man who changed literary history and the exceptional body of work that lives on long after his death. With a dual emphasis on history and criticism suggested by the book’s subtitle, Life and Work, Proffer’s book is a unique and essential work—a gift both to students of literary history and to fans of Bulgakov who simply want a closer look at the man who gave the world The Master and Margarita.