| |
| | Guardian Unlimited Books | By genre | Reality check |
 | | Mikhail Bulgakov, a master of realism, used allegory in his science-fiction tales of mad professors and deadly rays to savage the Soviet regime. |
 | | Mikhail Bulgakov was born in Kiev in 1891. |
 | | Working at the Moscow Arts Theatre, Bulgakov wrote plays - one about Molière, who had to work, like him, under the eye of the censor - and a novel, Black Snow, which was dramatised and performed at the National Theatre in London not long ago: one of the funniest evenings at the theatre I remember. |
| books.guardian.co.uk /departments/classics/story/0,6000,1040803,00.html (1696 words) |
|