Language is not what we lack. What we lack is effort. We have an exceptionally rich language. I say this not as a consoling formula, nor out of some residue of schoolroom pride. I work with Bulgarian every day and speak from experience: it is flexible, vivid, saturated with…

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…

“No,” said the Girl, and there was a familiar note in her voice. Painfully familiar. “No parking!” “Keep off the grass!” “Occupied!” “Oh, come on,” thought the Boy – who by now wasn’t really a boy anymore, but a short-cropped, greying little man. “It was ‘no’ the other day, too,…

It begins in a drowsy provincial town — Prespan, somewhere deep in 1980s Bulgaria — at a moment when history quietly forgets its manners. The so-called “Revival Process” is in full swing, and neighbour turns against neighbour in a fog of fear, confusion, and officially…