A Dog's Heart

Through surreal, often grotesque humour, Bulgakov gives an ingenious new twist to the "Frankenstein" parable, in a new translation of one of the most popular satires on the Russian Revolution and on Soviet society Having been scalded by boiling water earlier that day, and with little chance to survive the severe winter night, a stray dog is left for dead on the streets. Lamenting his fate, he is ill-prepared for the chance arrival of a wealthy professor who befriends him and takes him home. However, it seems the professor's motives are not entirely altruistican expert in medical experimentation, he sees his new charge as the potential subject for a bizarre operation, and implants glands from a dead criminal in the dog. The resulting half-man, half-beast is, as to be expected, a monstrosity, yet one that fits in remarkably well with Soviet society.

Mikhail Bulgakov is best known for The Master and Margarita, widely hailed as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century. A. S. Byatt is the acclaimed Booker-prize winning author of such works as The Biographer's Tale, The Children's Book, Little Black Book of Stories, and Possession.