Why We Can Touch Everything and Read Nothing Confession: Losing the Ability to Read For most of my adult life I could not imagine existence outside books. Reading was not merely a habit or cultivated taste; it was the environment in which thinking occurred. Books structured time,…

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…

„Shall I leave you alone?“ his mother asked from behind, and coughed – sharp, cutting. He didn’t answer, pulled one of the stools toward him and sank heavily onto it. The coffin swayed threateningly, and he propped it with his knee, glancing in alarm at the dead man, who had…

What awful luck! Just moments ago, the weather had been glorious, but now, as if from nowhere, thick, dark clouds had gathered, swiftly blotting out the sky with an ominous speed. The wind grew stronger and stronger. The trees and bushes in the garden bent and groaned under its…