Susan Orlean's Tale of Arson and Unfulfilled Dreams

In the Russian novel The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov, the Devil comes to 1930s Moscow and wreaks havoc on the lives of the city's literati. A talented writer, known as “the Master,” feels trapped in a world of ideologically pure but talentless hacks and throws his manuscript into a fire. Bulgakov had done just that in 1930: Believing it impossible to exist as a writer under Stalin's repressive regime, he burned the first draft of the novel. Later in the story, the Master is visited by the Devil, who returns the book, undamaged. “Manuscripts don't burn,” he tells the Master.