A Dog's Heart

A short satirical novella set in Moscow in the early 1920s. A famous surgeon, Professor Preobrazhensky, takes in a stray street dog and carries out a bold experiment, transplanting human organs into the animal. The result is a creature who becomes ever more human in speech and habits, yet also coarse, noisy and demanding. The professor and his assistant soon find their ordered household overturned. Part science-fiction fable and part political comedy, the story pokes fun at attempts to remake people by force and at the new social order. It was banned in the author's lifetime.