Собачье сердце (English: Heart of a Dog) is a novel by Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov. A biting satire of the New Soviet man, it was written in 1925 at the height of the NEP period, when communism appeared to be weakening in the Soviet Union.
The book was rejected for publication in 1925, due in part to the influence of Lev Kamenev, then a leading Party official. Bulgakov subsequently wrote a play based on the story in 1926 for the Moscow Art Theater. However, the play was cancelled after the manuscript and copies were confiscated by the secret police, or OGPU. Eventually, Maxim Gorky intervened to get the manuscript returned.
In 1968, it was published in English by Harvill Press, translated by Michael Glenny. The novel was published in the Soviet Union only in 1987, more than 60 years after its completion, but was made known to Russian readers via samizdat.
