- Hardcover: 240 pages
- Publisher: Sceptre (4 Aug 2011)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1444733710
- ISBN-13: 978-1444733716
- Product Dimensions: 21.6 x 13.8 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 539,704 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
East of the West
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Product Description
Review
"Bulgaria past and present, its magical fables, absurdist realities and political exigencies, are presented through the eyes of homesick emigrés and those who have remained. Penkov's stories combine toughness, vulnerability and bravado...he applies humour and compassion in equal measure: this is a sparkling collection." (Guardian )
'His splendid prose can be fleet, leisurely, colloquial, or formal... These stories are not the promising work of a first-time author. They are already a promise fulfilled--wise, bright, and deep with sympathy.' (Alec Solomita, The New Republic )
'There is a kind of magic at work in East of the West, a beautiful alchemy that combines wisdom and imagery, soul and story to render, finally, the pure gold of these tales. Miroslav Penkov is an extraordinary writer. May many books follow this one.' (Bret Lott, author of Jewel and A Song I Knew by Heart )
'Miroslav Penkov unpacks his stories with great skill, drawing the reader so deeply into the world he has created that when the magic comes - a father wrapping his son's eyelash in a handkerchief - it knocks the wind right out of you. EAST OF THE WEST captures the moments that prove we are truly living.' (Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief )
'Miroslav Penkov has successfully trapped two elusive creatures: the absurd beauty of Eastern Europe, and the emotional paradox of self-exile from that absurdity. His sense of history, his sense of humor, and his ability to create lasting characters make this book a dark yet hilarious pleasure.' (Elizabeth Kostova, author of The Historian )
'I suspect that Miroslav Penkov would be a wonderful writer in any language, but lucky for us, it happens to be English, and what funny, tender, tragic, and soulful stories he spins from his adopted tongue. EAST OF THE WEST is, simply put, one of the best collections I have read in years, ambitious and accomplished enough in scope to encompass east, west, and all stations in between.' (Ben Fountain, author of Brief Encounters with Che Guevara )
'Miroslav Penkov spins magical tales. There is wonderful humor here, and characters you will never forget. You will love this book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.' (Ellen Gilchrist, National Book Award-winning author of A Dangerous Age and I Cannot Get You Close Enough )
'Every once in a while, but no more often than that, a first book by a young writer comes along to restore a reader's faith in things. I mean big, serious things which matter, ones like memory, imagination, words, creativity and moral judgement...Rarely has such an intriguingly disparate cast been so deftly and dryly assembled...Penkov's stories are ironic without being trite, melancholic, but with a whiff of whimsy, revealing that they remain distinctly eccentric. He is a considerable, quirky, new talent.' (Canberra Times )
'a series of superb tales of love and hate, home and homesickness, passion, exile, violence, history and humour.' (Bendigo Advertiser )
"These eight stories play with dimensions of Bulgaria's beleaguered past and Turkish occupation through the eyes of an endearing set of appealing and convincing characters. Exile, betrayal, courage, hope, joy, death and anguish flow through these stories." (Sunday Territorian )
'His splendid prose can be fleet, leisurely, colloquial, or formal... These stories are not the promising work of a first-time author. They are already a promise fulfilled--wise, bright, and deep with sympathy.' (Alec Solomita, The New Republic )
'There is a kind of magic at work in East of the West, a beautiful alchemy that combines wisdom and imagery, soul and story to render, finally, the pure gold of these tales. Miroslav Penkov is an extraordinary writer. May many books follow this one.' (Bret Lott, author of Jewel and A Song I Knew by Heart )
'Miroslav Penkov unpacks his stories with great skill, drawing the reader so deeply into the world he has created that when the magic comes - a father wrapping his son's eyelash in a handkerchief - it knocks the wind right out of you. EAST OF THE WEST captures the moments that prove we are truly living.' (Hannah Tinti, author of The Good Thief )
'Miroslav Penkov has successfully trapped two elusive creatures: the absurd beauty of Eastern Europe, and the emotional paradox of self-exile from that absurdity. His sense of history, his sense of humor, and his ability to create lasting characters make this book a dark yet hilarious pleasure.' (Elizabeth Kostova, author of The Historian )
'I suspect that Miroslav Penkov would be a wonderful writer in any language, but lucky for us, it happens to be English, and what funny, tender, tragic, and soulful stories he spins from his adopted tongue. EAST OF THE WEST is, simply put, one of the best collections I have read in years, ambitious and accomplished enough in scope to encompass east, west, and all stations in between.' (Ben Fountain, author of Brief Encounters with Che Guevara )
'Miroslav Penkov spins magical tales. There is wonderful humor here, and characters you will never forget. You will love this book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.' (Ellen Gilchrist, National Book Award-winning author of A Dangerous Age and I Cannot Get You Close Enough )
'Every once in a while, but no more often than that, a first book by a young writer comes along to restore a reader's faith in things. I mean big, serious things which matter, ones like memory, imagination, words, creativity and moral judgement...Rarely has such an intriguingly disparate cast been so deftly and dryly assembled...Penkov's stories are ironic without being trite, melancholic, but with a whiff of whimsy, revealing that they remain distinctly eccentric. He is a considerable, quirky, new talent.' (Canberra Times )
'a series of superb tales of love and hate, home and homesickness, passion, exile, violence, history and humour.' (Bendigo Advertiser )
"These eight stories play with dimensions of Bulgaria's beleaguered past and Turkish occupation through the eyes of an endearing set of appealing and convincing characters. Exile, betrayal, courage, hope, joy, death and anguish flow through these stories." (Sunday Territorian )
Product Description
Prepare to discover a fascinating country; a land buffeted for centuries by power-struggles and revolts, lorded over by Turks, carved up by its neighbours, and subsumed into the Soviet Union. Yet also a land of proud and resilient people, of crawfish hunters and bagpipe makers, shepherds and gypsies, in which daily life goes on. So meet the teenager who swims by night across a border river to steal a kiss from his girlfriend, the ageing man who finds a cachet of loveletters his wife has kept for sixty years, and the post-Communist girl, an avowed thief with a heart of gold.
Here are Miroslav Penkov's beguiling, surprising and moving visions of his home country, Bulgaria: stories of people who mourn the way things were and long for what will never be, who wrestle with the weight of history, the debt to the family and the pangs of exile. And here is a remarkable new writer, who combines an eye for the absurd with great empathy to give a fresh and inspiring insight into our common humanity.
Here are Miroslav Penkov's beguiling, surprising and moving visions of his home country, Bulgaria: stories of people who mourn the way things were and long for what will never be, who wrestle with the weight of history, the debt to the family and the pangs of exile. And here is a remarkable new writer, who combines an eye for the absurd with great empathy to give a fresh and inspiring insight into our common humanity.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
The subtitle of this book is 'A Country In Stories' and I can't honestly say I'd go for this conceit, not because I know Bulgaria well, but because no book is ever going to do that. However, at the same time I'm happy to be convinced that Miroslav Penkov did his best to sum up his country in these tales. They are all a little longer than I like short stories, but so superbly written that I soon got lost in them. He chooses a range of characters of all ages, both genders and many different backgrounds to tell his stories. The narrator of Makedonija, the first story, says in his opening line, 'I was born just twenty years after we got rid of the Turks, 1898', which immediately sets the scene of a man who has seen a lot. The title refers to his wife's first love, and goes into the background of Balkan wars and the uneasy relationship Bulgaria has always had with its Macedonian neighbour. The title story also tells of a relationship between a man and a woman, and this time the neighbour in the story is what was Yugoslavia, and Serbia, in particular. It seems that you can't really tell Bulgarian stories without this reference to neighbours and outsiders. In Buying Lenin, the narrator's grandfather is an old communist, a bit of a diehard, but Penkov has avoided making him overzealous or unpleasant - you had to be a pragmatist in post-communist times as well as during them. The Letter and A Picture With Yuki have a more serious side to them - the first portraying the corruption in the post-1989 state at all levels, as it is clear that capitalism is not working for everybody, and the second with an incident at its centre that is ugly enough to affect the lives of everybody involved in it. The only story I didn't enjoy was Cross Thieves, focusing on clever, sassy, cynical juvenile delinquents, but it's hard to write about such characters without them becoming too clever, sassy and cynical, and I didn't think the author quite pulled it off in this one. Both The Night Horizon and Devshirmeh go far back into Bulgaria's history, and to that uneasy relationship with the Turks who dominated them. All in all, the negative things in this collection never overcame the positives, and I look forward to reading a novel by Miroslav Penkov.
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