A few minutes ago, I sent a message. Nothing extraordinary. A few lines. One link. Twenty-five years distilled into a few hundred characters. And from that moment on, nothing depends on me anymore. Hope is a strange thing. Not the idea of it, but the physical sensation. You…

My father, my most beloved Bulgarian, died a long time ago, on his feet. In this way he gave his sons a final – and perhaps most important – example, but that is not what I want to talk about. My old man, Mitko Enev, died trying to reach the top of the stairs, where an ambulance…

The sky over the city hung like old laundry, worn and faded from too much washing. A fine, sharp drizzle shaved the air; people scurried along, apologizing to one another when their umbrellas touched. The bloated, pretentious building — seemingly dulled by the constant roar of…

A Week in Paradise is a sharply observed and darkly humorous account of three Bulgarians arriving in newly reunified Berlin — a city still trembling with history and possibility. The protagonists, Vladko, his brother Boyan, and Vladko’s wife Teodora, form a classic triangle of…