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…

I was nine years old when I first realised that what I was speaking wasn’t simply the Bulgarian language, but something stranger, labelled by the incomprehensible word dialect. I was visiting my cousins in the romantic little town of Kavarna (“romantic” means nothing more here…

I am the happiest man in the world. I know I’m talking nonsense – but I don’t care, not as long as my Eva is beside me. I’ve got the most wonderful woman, earned her with sweat and hardship, so don’t tell me to knock on wood. When a man has been through stories like mine, he…

Beyond the ruined Park lies the Desert of Ghosts — a wasteland where the sun burns the ground white and the nights chill the bones.