Her Bulgakov reminds one of the virtuoso effects encountered in Zamyatin and Babel, as yell as the early Pasternak's bizarre tale of Heine in Italy. Mirra Ginsburg's (Grove Press) version is pointedly grotesque: she delights in the sharp, spinning, impressionistic phrase. The battle of competing translations, a new publishing phenomenon which began with One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, now offers two rival American editions of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. This new translation has been made from the complete and unabridged Russian text. Russians everywhere responded enthusiastically to the novel’s artistic and spiritual freedom and it was an immediate and enduring success. Although completed in 1940, The Master and Margarita was not published until 1966 when the first section appeared in the monthly magazine Moskva. Written during the darkest period of Stalin’s repressive reign and a devastating satire of Soviet life, it combines two distinct yet interwoven parts, one set in contemporary Moscow, the other in ancient Jerusalem, each brimming with incident and with historical, imaginary, frightful and wonderful characters. Full of pungency and wit, this luminous work is Bulgakov’s crowning achievement, skilfully blending magical and realistic elements, grotesque situations and major ethical concerns. Nothing in the whole of literature compares with The Master and Margarita. A masterful translation of one of the great novels of the 20th century
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