Underground Heavens

This book is like an uncut diamond — rough in its language, direct in its folk turns of phrase, cynical in places, with an unfeigned sense of humor. Perhaps that is exactly why it leaves in a person's soul the feeling of reality. In the unpretentious stories one catches the "smell" of life, but of that life which does not pretend to be righteous and which loathes the stupidity of false courtesies and memorized phrases. The figures are so characteristic and so typical of the "wild Bulgarian" that at moments they become kin to legends, to fairy tales, and to folk tradition. I say this not in order to justify the rough language, the surprising epithets, and the thoughts that "startle" by their frankness. The stories in the book are unlike what we are used to reading. There is in them such imagery, so many unexpected and newly found comparisons, that these can be explained only by the singular powers of observation of the one who writes — in this case a painter as well.

>>207 pages