Through his surreal, often grotesque humour, Bulgakov creates in this book - a new translation of one of the most popular satires on the Russian Revolution and on Soviet society - an ingenious new twist to the 'Frankenstein' parable. Having been scalded by boiling water earlier that day, and with little chance to survive the severe winter night, a stray dog is left for dead on the streets. Lamenting his fate, he is ill prepared for the chance arrival of a wealthy professor who befriends him and takes him home. However, it seems the professor's motives are not entirely altruistic - an expert in medical experimentation, he sees his new charge as the potential subject for a bizarre operation, and implants glands from a dead criminal in the dog. The resulting half-man, half-beast is, as to be expected, a monstrosity, yet one that fits in remarkably well with Soviet society...

Author Biography

Russian novelist and dramatist Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940) is one of the foremost satirists of the twentieth century. He is best known for The Master and Margarita. A.S. Byatt is one of England's foremost writers - a distinguished critic as well as a novelist - she was appointed a C.B.E. in 1990, the same year her novel Possession won the Booker Prize.