The secretary Mimi screamed and threw down the martenitsa the second she realised it was made from locks of hair. After managing to control her shaking hands, she picked up the phone – first she called the police, then she called her boss, whose mail she had been opening and getting ready for his arrival at 10 o'clock. Her boss, the prominent construction magnate Mr G.B. Nedyalkov, became hysterical when he found out the order of her actions, but it was already too late.
"What do you mean?" I said, though I knew exactly what she meant. A week earlier, driving home from my girlfriend's place late at night, rain blurring the windshield faster than the wipers could clear it, I'd pounded my fists against the steering wheel and hollered, "What am I doing here!" I didn't mean anything about my girlfriend. What I meant was, what in the world was I doing in Corvallis, Oregon? It rains constantly in Corvallis. When it's not raining, it smells of cow manure. I'm from the beach. I'm from San Luis Obispo, California.
He sprang out of the bushes with his beret and peacoat, board games and dice. We had broken down on top of some mushrooms that he wanted to collect, but he welcomed us. My mom liked that Al kissed her hand. She hoped he would tell my dad not to be a dolt all the time but he didn't do that. He marched up the trailer's aluminum stairs every sundown to share my awake shift because I didn't mind playing Stalin when he wanted to play Hitler in his three-paneled board game, Eastern Front.
The blinds in the bedroom are completely drawn, but the day still finds a way to penetrate with the roar of the garbage truck. This means it's Wednesday. This means it's eight fifteen. Is there a noisier noise than the noise of a garbage truck at eight fifteen?
If it were another time and another land, if gods are kinder or heard your prayers, your child would be twelve now, her face taking on the reminiscence of your face, or perhaps you as you once were, but no longer. Each part of her would have been a reminder that you had given birth to this child, a hand or a face, even her slightest way in which she cocks her neck as if she is listening to some voices other than what is apparent, real.
When I was ready, you told me that the recipe was to dip them one by one in the bowl with wine and brandy. And I got so drunk, after licking my fingers so many times, that when I was finished, I remembered how at the end of the summer, after finishing all the jars with pickles, my grandfather would always braid the dry tops of the onions. Then he would hang the big braid from the right corner of the window to chase the flies away.
What better way to celebrate the Bulgarian alphabet on 24 May than bringing Bulgarian writers together with their international counterparts? In the spirit of Cyril and Methodius, the original pioneers of Slavic literacy, the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation hosted its first annual summer fiction-writing seminar in Sozopol in May 2008.
What better way to celebrate the Bulgarian alphabet on 24 May than bringing Bulgarian writers together with their international counterparts? In the spirit of Cyril and Methodius, the original pioneers of Slavic literacy, the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation hosted its first annual summer fiction-writing seminar in Sozopol in May 2008.
The titles Petar Denchev chooses for his works are inversely proportional to his age. The story that earned this 22-year-old Varna man his first literary prize - in the Altera competition - was called "Malakof, I Want To Grow Old". The title of the novel which won him last year's Razvitie, or Development, contest for the best new Bulgarian novel, is even longer: Just Like a Man Kisses a Woman He Loves. However, Denchev, who studies theatre directing at the National Academy for Theatre and Film Arts, is growing up. His titles are getting shorter.
He lives in Plovdiv, his mother is Greek and his father is an actor. Born in 1964, the writer was captivated by the theatre before graduating in Bulgarian philology and developing a serious interest in literature. He studied in the Secondary School for Stagecraft together with artist Kolyo Karamfilov and producer Dimitar Mitovski. Literature and journalism prevailed and he has published three verse collections, a book of essays, a play and a novel entitled A Collector of Amorous Sentences.
A yuppie pukes up $500 worth of truffles and Bordeaux into a New York City gutter while his brother walks pinschers in Central Park. They are both Bulgarian and their father - or at least his remains - is packed away in a black box. Such a scene can only be straight out of an Alek Popov novel. Born in 1966, he is one of those rare Bulgarian writers who can describe the life of his compatriots abroad without tumbling from the lifeline of self-irony into the abyss of misguided patriotism.
While playing football with his fellow writers on one of his frequent trips around Europe to poetry festivals, workshops and meetings, writer Georgi Gospodinov broke his leg. The cast didn't slow him down, however. Gospodinov limped through Vienna, Graz and Klagenfurt on crutches and won a writing stipend in Berlin, previously held by Mario Vargas Llosa, Mircea Cartarescu and Susan Sontag.
In 2004, Englishman Edward Vick, head of the German-based translation company EVS that also has offices in Bulgaria, created the Vick Foundation to support Bulgarian literature.
The novel of the year award is just one part of the initiative designed to give writers a chance to see their work published in English. In the beginning, Bulgarians were sceptical. Three years later, however, the Vick Prize has become a prestigious award for prose.
