Praise
With powerfully pragmatic prose, Ivailo Petrov’s tragic work details the deep wounds inflicted on rural Bulgarian communities by the Soviet regime, using the stories of these six men as an intensely personal example.
An explosive mixture of patriarchy and communism, suppressed secrets and broken destinies in a remote Bulgarian village. Hidden traumas send six men on a final hunt – in which they themselves might turn out to be the game. A novel that grabs you by the throat and brings out the wolves in all of us.
A novel about memory - about witnessing and exposing the past.... All of contemporary Bulgarian prose comes out of this novel, whether it admits it or not.
A novel where the Earth is still solid and the world still rings, smells, touches, reaches and catches the senses and the sense of the readers. A novel in which dangerous liaisons of discourses and illegitimate marriages of styles perform the tragicomic spectacle of belated Bulgarian modernization.
[A] complex and compelling epic... [Ivailo Petrov] shows with exceptional skill the stark impact that communism had on the villagers of Bulgaria, and this new translation does his work justice.
A tragic masterpiece. Petrov’s humanity and attention to comic detail make this an unforgettable reading experience.
Extras
To learn a bit more about Ivailo Petrov’s life and works, please click here.
In 2013, on what would have been Ivailo Petrov’s 90th birthday, the Institute for Literature at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences held a conference on the writer’s works. For video and info about the presented papers, visit the Institute for Literature’s website.