Hugh A. Aplin Boeken

One hot spring, the devil arrives in Moscow, Accompanied by a retinue that includes a beautiful naked witch and an immense talking black cat with a fondness of chess and vodka. The visitors quickly wreak havoc in a city that refuses to believe in either God or Satan. But they also bring peace to two unhappy Muscovites: one is the master, a writer pilloried for daring to write a novel about Christ and Pontius Pilate; the other is Margairta, who loves the Master so deeply that she is willing to go to hell for him. What ensues is a novel of inexhaustible energy, humor, and philisophical depth, a work whose nuances emerge for the first time in Hugh Aplin's English version.

One of the great achievements of 20th-century Russian émigré literature, Dark Avenues —the culmination of a life’s work of unrelenting challenge to Soviet dogma—took Bunin’s poetic mastery of language, eventually known for its richness as "Bunin brocade," to new heights. Written between 1938 and 1944 and set in the context of the Russian cultural and historical crises of the preceding decades, this collection of short fiction centers around dark, erotic liaisons. Love in its many varied forms is the unifying motif in a rich range of narratives, characterized by the evocative, elegiac, elegant prose for which Bunin is rightly renowned.

As the turbulent years following the Russian revolution of 1917 settle down into a new Soviet reality, the brilliant and eccentric zoologist Persikov discovers an amazing ray that drastically increases the size and reproductive rate of living organisms. At the same time, a mysterious plague wipes out all the chickens in the Soviet republics. The government expropriates Persikov's untested invention in order to rebuild the poultry industry, but a horrible mix-up quickly leads to a disaster that could threaten the entire world.This H. G. Wells-inspired novel by the legendary Mikhail Bulgakov is the only one of his larger works to have been published in its entirety during the author's lifetime. A poignant work of social science fiction and a brilliant satire on the Soviet revolution, it can now be enjoyed by English-speaking audiences through this accurate new translation.Includes annotations and afterword.