Looking back through history, one can find something almost touching in the way each historical era selects its preferred image of catastrophe. Medieval Europe feared God’s wrath; the 19th century imagined civilization collapsing under the weight of its own decadence. The late…

I stepped into the luxurious hall with – thankfully already familiar – the sensation that I had the privilege of touching something truly cultivated, civilization in its least pretentious guise, the elevating voice of literature, that sort of thing. I’m not joking, nor do I…

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…

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…