The Master and Margarita

Recommended by Mashail Malik, Assistant Professor of Government, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

I love this book for so many reasons, but the chief among them is that I’ve never read anything else quite like it. It was written in the Soviet Union and never published in its uncensored entirety until after Bulgakov’s death. The story is about how the devil — alongside an entourage — descends upon Moscow in the shape of a professor, and the narrative takes so many unexpected wild turns that there’s no use describing much else about the plot, except to note that it is dark, humorous, and has interpretations that I am still considering years after having read it.