The devil someone said is the one who is never there. But, he is present in ‘The Master and Margarita’, a satirical fantasy set in Moscow when Stalin was at the height of his power. The devil and his entourage arrive and by the time they leave the Moscow
establishment is in an asylum. Part love story, part political and religious allegory, the novel was banned on publication and did not reach the west until 1968. It is now regarded as Mikhail Bulgakov’s greatest work. Between 1981 and 1991, I produced 2 complete series of illustrations: one in black and white the later in colour. I always imagined it as a movie, the original and the remake. But whereas the technicolour production featured splendid tableaux reminiscent of Fellini in his later phase, I still think the original best captures the cinematic sweep of Bulgakov’s dramatic narrative, like a silent by F.W.Murnau produced in a high expressionist style.