The Heart of a Dog

A new edition of Bulgakovs fantastical precursor to The Master and Margarita part of Melville Houses reissue of the Bulgakov backlist in Michael Glennys celebrated translations. A key work of early modernism this is the superbly comic story of a Soviet scientist and a scroungy Moscow mongrel named Sharik. Attempting a medical first the scientist transplants the glands of a petty criminal into the dog and with that turns a distinctly worryingly human animal loose on the city. The new lecherous vulgar Engels-spouting Sharik soon finds his niche in govenrmental bureaucracy as the official in charge of purging the city of cats. A Frankenstein fable thats as funny as it is terrifying Heart of a Dog has also been read as a fierce parable of the Russian Revolution. It was rejected for publication by the censors in 1925 and circulated in samizdat for years until Michael Glenny translated it into English in 1968long before it was allowed to be officially published in the Soviet Union. That happened only in 1987 although till this day the book remains one of Mikhail Bulgakovs most controversial novels in his native country.