Georgi Gospodinov

Georgi Gospodinov is author of seven books of poetry, fiction, and literary and cultural studies. His novel, Natural Novel, has been issued six times in Bulgaria and published in ten languages, including English, French, German, and Italian. Natural Novel has been reviewed in The New Yorker, The Village Voice, FAZ, and NZZ. The Times describes it as “humorous, melancholy and highly idiosyncratic"; according to The Guardian, it is “both earthy and intellectual.” His collection of short stories, And Other Stories, came out in several languages. In 2007, the English version was long-listed for the Frank O’Connor Award. Gospodinov’s play D.J. (an abbreviation of Don Juan), was awarded the Best Play of the Year Prize (2004) and staged in Bulgaria and abroad. Gospodinov’s projects centering around memory and everyday life in the recent past include I’ve Lived Socialism: 171 Personal Stories (2006, editor) and The Inventory Book of Socialism (2006, co-author). Georgi Gospodinov holds a Ph.D. from the Institute for Literature and is an editor and columnist for Literaturen vestnik. In 2008 he was a guest-writer of the Berliner Kuenstler program, DAAD.