My niece played me a song by The Cure; in return, just for fun, I read her a short story of mine – I’d only just written it. It’s very short, a bit like "The Old Man and the Sea", but with an even older protagonist, and even shorter

The Institute for National Remembrance has concluded that Bulgakov’s work forms part of ‘Russian imperial policy’, and his dismissal has, once again, caused a rift in public opinion