Bulgaria
Petar Denchev
Petar Denchev is Bulgarian fiction writer & theatre director. Denchev’s first literary appearance was the short story “Malakoff, I Want to Grow Old” , which won Altera magazine’s contest Ecstasy in 2006. It was also later published in English in the American magazine “The Litter Box Magazine” (2010). In the meantime, Petar Denchev has won various poetry contests as the second place at the National Youth Poetry Contest “Vesselin Hantchev” in 2006 and 2010. His novel “Just like a Man Kisses a Woman He Loves” won the first place at the contest for Best New Bulgarian Novels “Razvitie” in 2007. The next year the same novel won the special prize of “Raiffeizen Bank” at South Spring National contest. In 2008 with his short novel “Simple Story” he wins the second place at Ciela’s Novel Prize Competition. Petar Denchev has published in various Bulgarian magazines. He is also author of “Stories from the Past” (2011) a short story collection, “The Silent Sun” (2012), novels “The little God of the Earthquake” (2019) and “Overwinding“ (2021). Denchev is also director of the theatre performances.
МАЛКИЯТ БОГ НА ЗЕМЕТРЪСА (THE LITTLE GOD OF THE EARTHQUAKE)
Translation: Duško Krstevski
A man, following the traces of a mysterious midnight disappearance, returns in the footsteps of his own and other people's past - in his wardrobe, among the ruins of his father's house, along the streets of Sofia, on the banks of the Danube, in the middle of the bazaar in Skopje. Surviving the breakup of his love relationship, in order to survive the aftermath of the lost, he places himself at the entrances and exits of the present. Is this intense search able to overcome the feeling of life as composed of fears and lacks? Is it possible for a personal god to stabilize the landslide of life, to slow the advance of the madness that turns men into ritual machines?
"The little God of the Earthquake" presents an amazing story that penetrates the hidden relationships of life.