Embassies, Princesses, and a Publishing House in Oblivion

In the spring of 2005, a new curious episode entered Firecurl’s life.
I don’t remember exactly whether it was an email or a phone call, but at some point I suddenly learned that someone wanted to speak with me — Madam Meglena Plugchieva, the ambassador.

We had met briefly before through Dimitrè Dinev, the well-known Bulgarian author writing in German, after one of his readings at the embassy, which I had moderated. We were never especially close, but there was a lingering sense of sympathy, probably because we both preferred to judge the person across from us by their human qualities, not their political leanings.
And Mrs. Plugchieva is a person of serious caliber — something that probably doesn’t need much elaboration.

My astonishment rose dramatically when I learned that the reason for the call was an invitation from another important lady — Mrs. Zorka Parvanova, the president’s wife.

And the string of surprises continued.
It turned out that two other presidential wives — the American and the Russian — had both studied the same major: library science. And since, back then, there were still some tentative efforts to extend a hand through the thick coats of the impending new Cold War, the two ladies had decided to organize some kind of book festival in Moscow. To avoid disagreements over content, they chose the most neutral topic possible — children’s books.
They invited all the other first ladies — a bit like a Sunday coffee among old friends — and asked them to present the children’s literature of their countries.

Bulgaria and children’s literature?
I suppose Mrs. Parvanova must have been baffled — who in Bulgaria had ever heard of someone writing books for children, or at least anything worth showing two feet beyond the Danube?
Still, she called the National Library, and they told her yes, there’s something new and interesting, only no one’s ever heard of it.
“That’s the man you should look for.”

And so, our Zlatko landed in the most official Bulgarian delegation — not bad at all.
I got a visa for Russia in record time, VIP-style, then I flew to Sofia, filled with more than a few strange sensations.
“What’s going on? Has my dear homeland decided to change its skin? What’s with all this attention toward yours truly — this can’t be just for nothing.”

I was still taking myself waaaaay too seriously, I suppose.
The reality turned out to be far more modest.
We went through the motions in Russia, I strolled around Moscow for two or three days and was quite impressed — the scale of what at the time looked like renewal was truly awe-inspiring.
As for the festival — it marched on with cheerful, military rhythm, as is customary in Russia. Buckets of empty words were poured out, we showed the Russian kids two or three animations from Ghost Forest — at least we got some laughs. Nothing else, really.

Our people seemed thrilled not to have to sit around once again with flushed cheeks like not just poor, but extra poor relatives from the deep provinces.
We said our goodbyes — and that was that.
Thanks for your time, lad, don’t get carried away with those crazy ideas of yours now, take care, bye.

Well, not quite.
Zlatko may be many things, but naive isn’t one of them — I didn’t go to Moscow empty-handed. I prepared a neat little presentation bundle with my three colorful books, plus a compact disc packed with various digital flourishes — shiny and fun, just right for a “pitch.” And I brought it straight to the cultural attaché at the embassy in Moscow.

Now, I no longer remember the name of that kind man, but I remain deeply grateful to him. He took the matter seriously and promptly led me through a series of forgotten Moscow publishing houses — places buried in dust and cobwebs, relics from a different time.

These were once prestigious institutions during the Soviet era, when Lubomir Levchev and vsyá ostalnáya bolgárskaya literatúra were eagerly consumed.
But they had failed to notice that ten or fifteen years had passed, and that little Bulgaria was already drifting on very different winds.
Their publishing operations seemed frozen in memory, left behind by a world that had moved on.

And Russia, too, had moved on — leaving them trapped in a past that no longer existed.

But fate had another idea. At one point, a serious door seemed to open.

Mr. Iliyan Vassilev, a well-known Bulgarian diplomat and political analyst, was ambassador at the time. So I ended up in his office too, showed him my little flashy bundle, he flipped through it, we talked — and it turned out he was open enough to odd ideas to agree to do what he could.

From there, a real whirlwind began.
Not long after, I received a message in my inbox: the third largest Russian publishing house — Olma Press — had expressed serious interest in my books.

And fate spun the threads tighter: the head of the publishing house turned out to be a Bessarabian Bulgarian who had long been yearning to publish something from Bulgaria.
Go figure.

I broke a sweat!
I immediately launched an accelerated correspondence with the publishing house — they assigned me a special editor, Mrs. Alla Zhilinskaya — and we charged forward at full speed toward inevitable success.
Believe it or not, at one point we even signed a contract — with official signatures and stamps, everything.
I still have it.

All good — but soon, cracks started to appear in the beautifully lit picture. 
I don’t feel like decoding old emails now — they were written in character sets that computers no longer even support — but in general, it became clear that the publisher didn’t want to pay more than peanuts for the translations.
And obviously, that wouldn’t work — so, once again, Zlatko, open your wallet!

Another round of financing began — but this time I got lucky with the translator, Valentina Yarmilko, whom I had met in Moscow during the trip. Valya turned out to be strong-hearted and reliable. We got to work and spent most of 2006 translating all three books.

I’ve saved all the emails from that time — maybe they’ll come in handy one day. And the translations turned out wonderfully. Today, they still serve me well in the books’ latest incarnation — but more on that at the end.

That’s when a new round of tribulations began. They assigned me some young girl as a proofreader — and she shredded my nerves, constantly asking impossibly stupid questions.
Things like:
“How is it possible for a Bulgarian little girl to sing a song in French?”
Try explaining that in Bulgarian kindergartens, kids learn songs in French.
Or that the little girl isn’t exactly “Bulgarian,” but rather something strange — from everywhere and nowhere.
We Bulgarians are not the only blind racists and chauvinists in this world — it’s just that we don’t realize the sheer contempt and ignorance with which others sometimes look down on us, especially those who themselves fell out of the cradle of open civilization more than a century ago.
But let’s not go there now.

In the end, some kind of neutron bomb went off and the publishing house vanished like smoke. No more Olma Press, no one around — a new entity called Olma Media Group emerged, but they were no longer open to talks. I tried, pleaded, circled back — even Alexander Simon, my literary agent at the time, visited their offices — but it was no use. Contract or no contract — that was it. Just one more mystery of Moscow, and no answers to be found.

And so another colossal effort to bring the books into the open — in a big country, in a major language — sank into oblivion.
It wasn’t meant to be, and that’s that.

But the powder in my barrel has never run out.
And there are still many stories to come along the way.