A few months ago I unwisely entered into a Bulgarian fratricidal internet debate following the award of a literary prize to Kalin Terziisky. I was duly patronised for my pains. How dare I – an Englishman – pretend to know something about Bulgarian literature?
Kalin is rightly a very popular and successful writer and this has inevitably attracted anger from pretentious critics who have sought lazily to attach the fatal label of chalga to his writing shoulder. There will come a time when the use of the word chalga will undergo serious review.
I had then only read Alcohol. I was excited by the freshness of vision Now I have read Madness and find that Kalin has the startling genius required of all great art.
Click here for a translation of one of the chapters
