The Final Twist — and Light at the End
of the Forest

In 2006, I had my last tangible contact with a children’s audience in Bulgaria.
It was a sweet and unexpected experience — the Sofia City Library informed me that young teachers from the private German-language school “Uwekind” (or at least that’s how I remember it) had long been trying to reach me, because the three Firecurl volumes had become something like “required reading” at their school. They very much wanted to organize a visit.

I was flattered and moved, and immediately agreed. Two young women came to pick me up, one of them driving with her baby in the car. We chatted on the way — our stories were somewhat similar. They had studied in Germany but, unlike me, had returned home, started their own school about a decade earlier, fought through all the hardships, and had even begun to thrive. Along the way, they had discovered the books and made them part of the curriculum. I felt proud, I felt showered with attention, I felt indebted.

The most impressive part of the whole story were the children themselves. Clearly carefully selected, their eyes sparkled like little beacons, without a trace of unnecessary shyness or childish showmanship. These were little people who had already begun to understand something of their own worth — and weren’t afraid of the thought that maybe they were... a kind of elite.

From that point on came many long years in which Firecurl receded into the background, overshadowed by my later work and literary pursuits.
In 2006, I began Requiem for Nobody; in 2007, I launched the webzine Liberal Review.
Gradually, my “adult” work displaced everything else — and little by little, I forgot my “childish pursuits.”
Or rather — not quite.
Though no longer at the center of my attention, Anne continued to fight for her right to exist — even within me.

At some point I tried an American-style self-publishing attempt, which turned out mostly ridiculous.
For years, I received an annual check from the publisher for $1.74 (one dollar and seventy-four cents, just to be clear).
I found the book in Amazon’s catalog; occasionally, a reader would reach out — sometimes with wildly hyperbolic praise that made me cringe with embarrassment — but that was all.

Two things stand out more clearly in my memory:
my attempts to “solve the problem” head-on by trying to engage major global figures.
I wrote to J.K. Rowling.
I wrote to Peter Jackson in New Zealand.
Interestingly, I got replies — not from them, of course, but from their assistants — polite, impersonal rejections, but still: someone, somewhere, had registered my efforts.
The letters themselves still sit in my archive, though I find them too embarrassing to share.
Maybe someday, when I’m in a different place.

And so — all the way to 2017, when I made my next big, costly attempt to “break the ceiling.”
This time I hired not one but two German translators.
I won’t mention names; they’re not among the top professionals, and in a sense, the whole story speaks only to the desperate persistence with which I kept ramming into the wall.
We worked for half a year or more, I don’t remember exactly. After that, I started sending out submissions to every German literary agency that claimed to accept children’s books. I sent 53, if memory serves.

Some time passed; replies started trickling in. Yeah... the tone was always the same:
“Introducing a new author into the current German book market is extremely difficult, we’re very sorry.”
Or something along those lines.
Some claimed the German in the translation wasn’t strong enough.
I can’t judge — I’ve never been able to. The only language I can function in “literarily” is Bulgarian.
In all others, my senses operate only rudimentarily.
I can understand everything, or nearly everything — but not make that incredibly fine distinction between good writing and mere “writing,” where the soul of literature resides. There were times when this thought tormented me endlessly, when I struggled and struggled to write in the Western languages I know. It never worked.
I’ve long since abandoned such ambitions.
Today, I’m perfectly content being a Bulgarian-language author — even if my connection to the place I was born grows thinner and fainter with each passing day.

So.
I arrive at the very end of the story, which — go figure — unexpectedly took on an absolutely major-key, almost celebratory tone. And why, do you think?

Well, it’s simple — the universe finally sent me an angel. The miracle I had stopped hoping for many years ago appeared at last — quietly, without fanfare or fireworks.

Diana Naneva appeared.

It was the end of 2021. I was caught in strange and somber moods, unable to see anything hopeful no matter where I looked. And amid the emotional austerity of daily life — I no longer even know how — it occurred to me to call Lyubo Rusanov again.
“So Lyubo,” I said, “the books are hitting a round anniversary. What do you say we try some kind of special edition?”
By that point, I was so used to rejection I didn’t even care what the answer would be — one more, one less, I’d long since stopped counting.
But completely unexpectedly, he said: “Sure, why not?”

I blinked like a baby — I couldn’t believe it. We chatted a bit, discussed the idea. I suggested that if we were going to do this, we might as well do it right — finally create an edition with good illustrations. He agreed, but as always, with the caveat: “Whatever you do yourself — that’s what gets done.”

And so I started looking for illustrators. I asked Google — it pointed me to a few names. I tried here and there.
Only one person replied — Rossen Manchev, someone I’d never heard of, but whose online work looked distinctive and dynamic.
“Thank you, Mr. Enev,” he said. “I’m too busy, but I can refer you to a young colleague, someone I vouch for with both hands: Diana Naneva.”

And that’s how we began.

I don’t want to say too much about this last part of Anne’s life — because it’s still unfolding, and so are the people involved. So I’ll leave judgments and evaluations for another time. For now, I’ll just say: Anne has never looked so modern, so dynamic, so global as Diana manages to make her. Whether or when this will lead to results — I can’t say. But I am certain of one thing: the books we’re creating right now are already unique in their design — not just by Bulgarian provincial standards. These are world-class books.

It took some struggle to find a publisher among the eternally skeptical Bulgarian gatekeepers. At least two prominent figures in Bulgarian publishing replied with something along the lines of:
“I can’t publish your books — but I can teach you how to write proper literature.”

Those are not words one forgets easily. We’ll see if I ever get the chance to remind them. I realize this is ego talk — but that’s how it feels inside me, and I have no intention of glossing it over. Bulgaria has always been a place where the one-eyed bicker with the blind — mostly because no one can agree on who’s who. Let’s see if, at least in this particular case, any glimmers of a final verdict emerge.
Amen!

The rest is a matter of time.

Berlin, January 2024