When looking back, can you clearly see the importance of the Bulgarian book for you?

My father was a disabled soldier, he worked as a bookseller in Sliven. When I was a child I helped him with his work. I owe everything to him.

Which books have given you the most and from which books have you been able to take more than you believed it possible?

As a reader, I have been most happy with Elin Pelin.

What is the destiny of fine letters now, and what could this destiny be in the near and in the more distant future?

Unhappy. Tomorrow it will be worse.

The cultural crisis of today has its causes and its signs, but it also has a remedy that is basically universal. Perhaps, the purely Bulgarian specifics of this remedy remain out of focus?

Politicians lie, bandits rob, murderers kill, friends cheat, sons forget.. Whom can you trust?

There are many secrets to a book, and the author’s mastership tends to be among the most obscure. Have you reached a conscious explanation for yourself of everything that you have created – as creative art, besides a pure will, is also the product of the artist’s instincts, of the artist’s enigmatic and mysterious self that he deciphers only partially in his texts to the reader?

The secrets are kept for writers only. If readers could discover the secrets, everyone could become a writer.

What has been the major source of hope and belief for you through the years?

Everything’s a lie that has misled me.

What is your vision of Bulgaria at the end of the 21st century? What does Time mean to you?

I feel sorry for it. And for everything in general.

What is the weight of the values created over the last hundred years, and what is the burden that these years have placed on us?

The formation of the Fourth Power in our minds, the immunity of Freedom. But we here are just residents of “Lower Eski-Mosia”.

Are you optimistic or pessimistic about the destiny of the Balkans and mankind, and why?

War is no trifle: people are killed there.

Is there any peculiarity of your character that you freely joke about in public? And does it happen frequently?

I have made a joke of myself throughout my life.

What would you choose – if you had to choose today – between a bag of gold and an eternal book? And what would have been your choice 30 years ago?

A bag of gold and a book? I can only face such a dilemma when both the gold and the book are fake.

Do you think that in these times when the path to the reader is difficult and uncertain, new names could emerge? Could the experience with your own public recognition be useful today? How did you gain recognition, was it easy?

My recognition is like that of a donkey at a wedding.

Would you disclose your own anthology or collection of names of masters of the prose whom you hold in highest esteem – names from the Bulgarian and world, including Balkan, literature?

Don’t worry, I won’t put my name in it.