The Story Smuggler

With this story, Georgi Gospodinov invites the reader on a winding journey through his own memories.

This is a sincere, and therefore sometimes poignant, story of the writer about himself: his childhood, family and the linguistic and cultural identity of his country, in which a special place is occupied by an inexpressible special sadness, the baggage that many generations have accumulated. The author looks into the depths of his being - and reveals to us the secrets of creativity and the birth of himself as a writer, introducing us to his homeland at the same time.

...Some people smuggle cigarettes and alcohol, some - weapons, and our goods are invisible and therefore more dangerous. Scanners do not notice it.

We carry hidden excess baggage of stories, our own and others'.

Writers, translators, and smugglers are actually doing the same thing - translating, that is, transferring, moving the desired, the valuable, the absent, the repressed, the forbidden...