About Christopher Buxton

christopher buxtonA child of loving parents – a Theatre Director and Actress – always on the move, I was dispatched to a Boarding School run by Catholic priests. This was in every sense an enriching and painful experience, fuelling a fascination and fear regarding organised religion in both its spiritual and physical aspects.

Escaping the Monastic world, I entered the 60s, got a degree in English and American Literature but failed the crash course in opposite sex relationships. I took the view that the solution to heartache was in paid travel – so I went to work as a teacher in first Portugal, then Norway. learn more

Books

Седемте палавници и властната принцеса

Запознайте се с Умниция – най-властната от властните принцеси. Докато Кралят, баща ѝ, води тежки битки с дракони, тя управлява замъка и подчинява придворните. Но скоро заплаха надвисва над живота и царуването ѝ. Предадена, принцесата е изправена пред изпитания. Тя е малка, а опасностите – страшни. Как да ги преодолее? Умниция ще намери помощ от седем палавници и странна вълшебна къща, но тя трябва да се бори освен със злото и със своя неотстъпчив характер. Ще успее ли? Приказка като приказка – за борбата между доброто и злото. Но защото е необикновена приказка за умни деца с въображение, тя разказва и за борбата на човека със собствените му слабости.

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The Princess Commander and The Seven Scallywags

Meet Smartina. While her Daddy the King is away fighting dragons, she’s the queen of the castle and her word is law. All too soon though, she is threatened by a rival. Before she can issue a new command she is drugged, put in a sack and left outside a bears’ cave in the middle of an impenetrable forest. Lucky for her that she is rescued by a magic house and garden. But this is where the seven rumbustious little scallywags live – and she will face her greatest challenge as Princess Commander. An enchanting tale for 7-11 year olds.

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Far From the Danube

One extraordinary woman crosses Europe with her wounded knight. It is a journey from the frying pan of conquered Bulgaria into the fire of the Hundred Years War.
Exile, survival and forbidden love, this story speaks across the centuries to our own times.
Based on a recorded meeting between Maria Iskra and English king Henry V and on considerable local research in Normandy, this novel brings real events to dramatic life.

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Prudence and the Red Baron

Just how prudent can Prudence be? Prudence Box arrives to teach in the absurd world of communist Bulgaria just as its government is preparing to force people to change their names. As Comrade Teacher, her powers of discretion are sorely tested by the school regime and only her sense of humour rescues her from the demands of her eccentric colleagues. Despite the packets of condoms packed by her coldly responsible stepfather, her height and upbringing have so limited her romantic expectations that it comes as quite a shock to be wooed by a handsome young man. Only one problem – the young man’s father is a Colonel in State Security. Prudence has to cope with the vicissitudes of love between cultures, tested by time and changing circumstances. Now with her husband in prison, her father-in-law on the run, threatening phone calls from an Albanian gang boss and her dominatrix tenant hitting the tabloid headlines, Prudence will be sore pressed to live up to her name and save her family. Prudence and the Red Baron is a romantic black comedy that casts a personal light on the momentous changes in Europe over the last twenty years.

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Radoslava and the Viking Prince

Eleventh Century Byzantium forms the backdrop to this tense drama where these passionate characters collide in love and hate. Two young women of noble descent are divided by blood-feud and position – one can only hope; one can only lose. A blinded prince in search of a warm body suddenly finds himself embroiled in a conspiracy. A Viking who thinks himself immortal has to bend his neck. An Empress of many husbands, skilled in magic potions, seeks to re-establish her power. A disappointed idealist prepares to commit a spectacular act of treachery. Based on real characters and events, the author skillfully tells a thrilling story which has as many twists and dark corners as a Byzantine alleyway.

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Surge

In 1925 Balkan Wars’ veteran, Dancho Popov, returns home to his wife Vitka after ten years’ absence, dressed only in his underpants. Terrified that he will be arrested as a deserter he has walked from the Turkish border barefoot and at night-time. Vitka has to hide him. Neither is ready to reveal the truth about the immediate past. Dancho relives a horrifying symmetry in recurrent nightmares that feature hands and ropes. They are based on his capture by Senegalese soldiers in 1916 and his subsequent involvement in people smuggling between Africa and lawless post-war Marseilles. Vitka, an attractive “war widow” in a turbulent Bulgaria, has been drawn ever closer to her family protector, the hotelier Plamen Gospodinov. Her pregnancy will lead to murder. With great attention to detail and extraordinary narrative power this novel tackles major issues of prejudice and redemption.

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The Devil's Notebook

It’s 1965. A young woman has been found murdered in a Wiltshire wood. At the local prep school, the head teacher strives to keep the vulgar world outside his gates, but special boy Buck has found a clue. And soon the woods on the estate are being trampled not only by the local police, but by agents of a foreign power. Latin master, Mitko Spassov, is jerked from his routine safe world. A sinister book forces him to confront his troubled relationship with his now Communist homeland.

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In the Desert beyond the Labyrinth

A new adventure for the Princess Commander and the Seven Scallywags.
Two children are missing from Jollybubbles, a boarding school where there are no rules. Princess Smartina and the seven scallywags face a dangerous journey through a labyrinth and into a trackless desert.

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Далече от Дунава

Роман по деиствителни събития за съдбата на българка и рицар хоспиталиерр които прекосват Европа и оцеляват заедно в размирнния XIV век.

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Завръщане

Ветеранът от Балканската война Данчо Попов се завръща у дома при жена си Витка с десетгодишно закъснение и никой от двамата не е готов да признае истината за близкото си минало.
Данчо преживява отново и отново кошмарите на пленничеството си и трафика на хора от Африка до Марсилия, в който е бил замесен и който го белязва за цял живот.
Витка, красива “вдовица от войната”, която отглежда сама сина си в размирна България, е била съблазнена от семейния покровител – хотелиера богаташ Пламен Господинов. Нейната бременност ще доведе до убийство.
С майсторско описание на детайлите и с изключителна сила на повествованието и в обратите в развитието на сюжетната линия, романът разисква важните и вечни теми на предразсъдъците, любовта, чувството за дълг и чест и липса на такова, както и греховете и изкуплението на хора, които самият живот превръща в герои.

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Flowers don't grow singly

A collection of classic Bulgarian poems selected and translated by Christopher Buxton. Including Hristo Botev, Mara Belcheva, Peyo Yavorov, Dimcho Debelyanov and Nikola Vaptsarov

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Doors - a selection of poems by Atanas Dalchev

A first collection in English of the great Bulgarian symbolist poet, Atanas Dalchev.

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To Return to Your father's House

A selection of poems by Dimcho Debelyanov, whose life was cruelly ended by a British sniper’s bullet on the Doiran front in WW1.

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Confidentially poems by Peyo Yavorov

A selection of Bulgaria’s foremost romantic poet, translated into English by Christopher Buxton

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В пустинята отвъд лабиринта - Ново приключение на Умниция и седемте палавници

Приказката “В пустинята отвъд лабиринта” е новото приключение на седемте палавници и тяхната кака – Умниция, с които малките български читатели вече се познават. Нещата с тях са се променили – те са малко по-големи и в тази приказка са детективи – в търсене на две “загубени” деца. Тези деца са избягали от едно учлилище без никакви правила в друго, в което режимът е много строг. Това ги изправя не само пред вълнуващи приключения, но също и пред две противоположни системи на образование. Ще успеят ли Умниция и палавниците да се преборят с Мама Тила и Алрик и да освободят всички деца? Как ще го направят?

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