CULTURE

Mum says I have the memory of an elephant. That Jay got the brains, Emily, the beauty, and me, I never forget.

I remember sixth grade: Blair Cavaney, year five toff kicking Johnny in the nuts, not once, but twice because he looked 'weird.' Walker and me, suspended for a week because we pushed him up against the dental shed. Told him that you never kick anyone in the nuts. That if he did it again, we'd kick his head in.

Jacques loved his home town. And why wouldn't he – Paris was the most beautiful city in the world. Everybody loved Paris, people came in throngs. Tourists prowled every nook and cranny. It had long ago become impossible to take a stroll around the Latin Quarter, by the Eiffel Tower, or down the small, picturesque streets of Le Marais. Not to mention Montmartre or the Champs-Élysées.

This year's 11th salon will open in the Yambol City Gallery in March, 2015.

Born in 1986 and still looking for his true self, Yambol photographer Toti Badzhakov is young and healthy. Everyone may be young and healthy, but then everyone can fall ill, which is what happened to Toti last year when he had to spend a week laid up in hospital.

There, he found a new subject for his photography, the atmosphere of Bulgarian hospitals outside the capital Sofia – a subject rarely if ever touched upon by Bulgarian photographers.

The first to feature was Kapka Kassabova, the Bulgarian-born author living in Scotland, and Street Without a Name, her brilliant memoir for childhood under Socialism and revisiting modern Bulgaria.Since its first issue, Vagabond has been the only media introducing contemporary Bulgarian literature and writers to English-speaking audience.

In 2008 we published East of Constantinople/Travels in Unknown Turkey, a travelogue about some of the highlights of one of Europe's most amazing countries. From the Iranian border and what some still think is the remnants of Noah's Ark to places like Mount Nemrut, Şanlıurfa, Cappadocia and Trabzon, we transversed eastern Turkey several times over to be able to come up with a product that still captures the imagination of thousands of readers. In Bulgarian only.

To buy a trip to the Cosmos, to pay a million and some for it – I’m proud of this idea. But I need to be completely prepared physically as well as financially. Medical exams, yes, and all those procedures.

…It was an almost ordinary day. We gathered in the common room and discussed the spelling of the words cappuccino and espresso. According to a nice little old man in a checkered shirt and striped pants, I forgot his name, the spelling was "campuccino" because it originated from Campuccio, and "expresso" because it was brewed fast and they served it on express trains in the past. He was very convincing and it took them some time to change his mind. Then we passed a ball to each other and we had to be truthful. The five of us were very careful not to be.

London-born Rome-residing Matthew Kneale has been a household name in literary circles since the success of his novel English Passengers, 2000. A story about a religious-scientific expedition that seeks The Garden of Eden in Tasmania, it is set against the background of the brutal destruction of the New World by British settlers and convicts.

It is a kind of painting that rather changes in character, and takes on a richness the longer you look at it. Besides, you know, Gauguin likes them extraordinarily. He said to me among other things – "That...it's...the flower."
Vincent Van Gogh in a letter to Theo Van Gogh

John, an American, is biding his time with the family of his Bulgarian wife as he drinks, smokes and makes enthusiastic but not particularly successful attempts to understand that strange Balkan country called Bulgaria.

Maya, a Bulgarian, is acquainted with the ancient history and agrees to help with the investigation.