This collection comprises 18 short stories as on the surface the narratives are deceptively straightforward: mostly female narrators are recollecting a memory of a great-grandmother, a lost love, a deceased husband, a childhood event. Beleva is a master of language as she focuses on individual words, even letters and elevates them from their day-to-day use. Many of the stories deal quite literally and directly with words, with the power and importance of words: missed or misspelled, accurate or wrong words. These stories are deeply rooted in tradition, yet with the universal theme of love: for a child, for a dog, for a teacher, for those who existed in our periphery, lost love, love shared until death. Often, Beleva leaves much more unsaid and in doing so she opens spaces for the reader to plant something of their own. The collection received the Yordan Radichkov national short story award in 2022.
– Yana Ellis
World rights available
English sample translations available
