The Master and Margarita (1967)

The devil comes to 1930s Moscow in The Master and Margarita, bringing a retinue that includes a huge, gun-toting, wisecracking black cat, and the city's literary bureaucrats, theater managers and housing officials never stand a chance. The satire is savage, the set pieces are wildly funny, and underneath it runs a love story and a retelling of Pontius Pilate. Bulgakov wrote it in secret and it was published only in the late 1960s, long after his death. Translations vary a lot. Burgin and O'Connor's is the most often praised for keeping the humor and irony readable, Pevear and Volokhonsky's for fidelity and notes; avoid Mirra Ginsburg's, which was made from a censored text.