Literary Fiction
Short stories portray Bulgarian history, exile, family ties, and absurdity through characters wrestling with communism, borders, and lost loves.
Owned
No reviews yet
Owned
Short stories portray Bulgarian history, exile, family ties, and absurdity through characters wrestling with communism, borders, and lost loves.
About
Details
A grandson tries to buy the corpse of Lenin on eBay for his Communist grandfather. A failed wunderkind steals a golden cross from an Orthodox church. A boy meets his cousin (the love of his life) once every five years in the river that divides their village into east and west. These are Miroslav Penkov’s strange, unexpectedly moving visions of his home country, Bulgaria, and they are the stories that make up his beguiling and deeply felt debut. In East of the West , Penkov writes with great empa...
What's Inside
will contain mild spoilers
Sexual content
AI
Cousins fall in love and meet secretly across a river border every five years
Violence & gore
AI
References to war, dangerous borders, and historical bloodshed
Profanity
AI
No profanity depicted
Substance use
AI
No substance use depicted
LGBTQ+ Rep.
AI
No LGBTQ+ characters or themes
Religious content
AI
Theft of a cross from an Orthodox church; folklore and rituals referenced
Magic & witchcraft
AI
No magic or witchcraft
Occult / demonology
AI
No occult content
Political content
AI
Communism, political instability, exile, and Bulgarian history are central
Self-harm / suicide
AI
No self-harm or suicide
Abuse & suffering
AI
Themes of exile, family obligations, and historical suffering including forced conscription
Other
AI
No information found