**Banned for 27 years and initially published in a heavily censored edition, The Master and Margarita is probably the most important Russian novel of the 20th century.*Written as a satire of Stalin's suffocating bureaucracy, the book has inspired Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses *, The Rolling St...

**Banned for 27 years and initially published in a heavily censored edition, The Master and Margarita is probably the most important Russian novel of the 20th century.*Written as a satire of Stalin's suffocating bureaucracy, the book has inspired Salman Rushdie's The Satanic Verses *, The Rolling Stones' song Sympathy for the Devil and the work of many other international artists, writers and musicians.