Mikhail Bulgakov wrote The Master and Margarita — one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century — in secret, knowing it could never be published in his lifetime without getting him killed. Stalin personally intervened to keep Bulgakov alive after his plays were banned, calling him on the telephone in one of the most surreal episodes in literary history. The novel was not published until twenty-six years after Bulgakov’s death.

This episode traces Bulgakov from his Kiev childhood through the plays that made and ruined his career, the mysterious phone call from Stalin, and the secret composition of the masterpiece that finally appeared in 1966.

• Bulgakov’s early career as a playwright and the success that drew the censors’ attention
• The banning of his works and the desperate letter to Stalin that provoked a surreal phone call
• The secret writing of The Master and Margarita over twelve years, knowing it could not be published
• Bulgakov’s death in 1940 and the novel’s posthumous publication that made him immortal