The Devil has come to town. But don’t worry –  all he wants to do is stage a magic show. This absurd premise  forms the central plot of Mikhail Bulgakov’s masterpiece, "The Master and Margarita." Written in Moscow during the 1930s, this surreal blend  of political satire, historical fiction, and occult mysticism has earned a legacy as one  of the 20th century’s greatest novels– and one of its strangest. The story begins  when a meeting between two members of Moscow’s literary elite is interrupted by a strange gentleman  named Woland, who presents himself as a foreign scholar invited to give a presentation  on black magic. As the stranger engages the two companions in a philosophical debate and makes ominous predictions  about their fates, the reader is suddenly transported  to 1st century Jerusalem. There a tormented Pontius Pilate reluctantly sentences  Jesus of Nazareth to death. With the narrative  shifting between the two settings, Woland and his entourage–  Azazello, Koroviev, Hella, and a giant cat named Behemoth– are seen to have uncanny magical powers, which they use to stage their performance while leaving a trail  of havoc and confusion in their wake. Much of the novel’s dark humor  comes not only from this demonic mischief, but also the backdrop  against which it occurs. Bulgakov’s story takes place  in the same setting where it was written– the USSR  at the height of the Stalinist period. There, artists and authors  worked under strict censorship, subject to imprisonment,  exile, or execution if they were seen  as undermining state ideology. Even when approved, their work– along with housing, travel,  and everything else– was governed by a convoluted bureaucracy. In the novel, Woland manipulates this system  along with the fabric of reality, to hilarious results. As heads are separated from bodies  and money rains from the sky, the citizens of Moscow  react with petty-self interest, illustrating how Soviet society  bred greed and cynicism despite its ideals. And the matter-of-fact narration deliberately blends  the strangeness of the supernatural events with the everyday absurdity  of Soviet life. So how did Bulgakov  manage to publish such a subversive novel under an oppressive regime? Well… he didn’t. He worked on "The Master and Margarita" for over ten years. But while Stalin’s personal favor may have kept Bulgakov  safe from severe persecution, many of his plays and writings  were kept from production, leaving him safe but effectively silenced. Upon the author’s death in 1940, the manuscript remained unpublished. A censored version  was eventually printed in the 1960s, while copies of the unabridged manuscript continued to circulate  among underground literary circles. The full text was only published in 1973, over 30 years after its completion. Bulgakov’s experiences  with censorship and artistic frustration lend an autobiographical air  to the second part of the novel, when we are finally  introduced to its namesake. "The Master" is a nameless author  who’s worked for years on a novel but burned the manuscript  after it was rejected by publishers– just as Bulgakov  had done with his own work. Yet the true protagonist  is the Master’s mistress Margarita. Her devotion  to her lover’s abandoned dream bears a strange connection  to the diabolical company’s escapades– and carries the story  to its surreal climax. Despite its dark humor  and complex structure, "The Master and Margarita"  is, at its heart, a meditation on art, love, and redemption, that never loses itself in cynicism. And the book’s long overdue publication  and survival against the odds is a testament  to what Woland tells the Master: “Manuscripts don’t burn.”