Vladislav Todorov
Dzift (Pitch)
Janette 45 Publishing House
‘The Story I will try to tell here, as far as my strengths and memory (which I feel are leaving me fast) allow it, began a long time ago, about twenty years ago. It came to an end when I, the citizen Lev Kaludov Zhelyazkov was released. At the age of thirty-eight I crossed the threshold of Sofia Central Prison where I served a sentence for murder and robbery. I had entered it during certain historic time and left it at a completely different time – the day of Ninth September separated them. ’
Vladislav Todorov
Galin Nikiforov
Dobro Momche (Good Boy)
Janette 45 Publishing House
‘The luxury building of the District Court and District Prosecutor’s Office was lit up in the bluish winter dusk like a transoceanic liner anchored in a dark port. The end of the workday was coming and Pavel was standing at the front door holding his arms behind his back. He was tired of the boring door-keeper’s duties more than usual, that’s why he was looking at the enormous marble foyer and the anemic India-rubber plants along the walls with a bored air while he was waiting for the appearance of the deputies of the District Prosecutor who always left first.’
Galin Nikiforov
Georgi Tenev
Partien Dom (Party Headquarters)
Altera Publishing House
‘In the party headquarters of the reactor, in the reactor of the party headquarters – under the lid taken-off other people’s stares invade. The whole world already knows everything about Chernobil. Sparkles are flashing and telegrams - flying between the capital cities of the planet. Finally, Moscow half-heartedly admits. Kiev is in mourning although not officially. And in our country they keep silence, the spring is putting forth without panic. She is looking for my lips with her lips, she is grasping at my heated chest. She wants to save me, to correct, if possible, her father’s mistake. The infantile memory in the invisible shaved hairs is smashing me to dust, melting me, I drop my arms. This probably disappoints her, the pain is flowing away from her body but she also understands: we’d better stop, it’s better for both of us. The blue flesh of my long body is crawling out of the conquered outflows. I fall on my back and she rests aside, we are both bathing in sweat, it is flowing through both of us. Do I love her or do I hate her? – nobody has ever asked me a more relative question.’
Georgi Tenev
Maria Stankova
Trikrakoto Kuche (Three-Legged Dog)
Janette 45 Publishing House
‘A yellow road. Of course, it is dusty, a cart-track. Along its two sides – green fields and a sun in the distance. Huge, orange, warming like the end of the world. One, two, three, four … It can be so. It can be so. A circle among unripe wheat, or it maybe oats or rye, it doesn’t matter. The arms are wide spread and the legs – slightly open. Breathe! Three sisters are sitting … Since this fairy tale was written the three sisters have been sitting by the window and spinning. The same old story happens. In the fairy tales there’s no other option. There’s no right of choice. What is written once becomes engraved in the space and freezes.’
Maria Stankova
Emilia Dvoryanova
Zemnite Gradini na Bogoroditsa (The Earthly Gardens of the Mother of God)
Obsidian Publishing House
‘The Earthly Gardens of the Mother of God’ is a beautiful, for some people maybe scandalous, book which grasps the spirit of Aton, the place forbidden for women, in a unique way. After Dvoryanova’s female characters passed through the musical erotic (‘Passion or the Death of Alice’) and through the experience of ethic catharsis (‘Mrs. G.’), now in her new novel, three Marias try to fulfill their longing for the unachievable. In the vicissitudes of the plot, in the meanders around the banks of Sveta Gora, in the search of Maria who disappeared, the place to which access is forbidden (but is it forbidden only for women?) gradually acquires its meaning, visibility and flesh.’
Palmi Ranchev
Anonimni Snayperisti (Anonymous Snipers)
Fama Publishing House
The novel of Palmi Ranchev again tells about what happens here and now, in the hostile environment of the endless Bulgarian transition with all its meanders and insanities. Without running into the known flow of modern novels which describe the criminal life of part of Bulgarian society, the author uses this background in order to make even more absurd the existence of his character who has dared to disagree, to oppose to what we are being convinced by the media and by politicians today – bend down your heads, reconcile yourselves to this because there is even worse.
Silvia Choleva
Longlist 2007 
Shortlist 2007
