Writer Deyan Enev, Chair of the Jury for the 2026 Rashko Sugarev National Competition for a Published Short Story, answered questions specifically for Untold Stories:
- As Chair of the Jury for the 2026 Rashko Sugarev National Competition for a Published Short Story, would you please share your impressions of its work?
When working with like-minded people, with colleagues who are fully aware of the value of writing, then the job is easy. We selected those stories that spoke with an authentic voice.
- In the competition, held annually since 1997, more than 75 young authors have been awarded, including already established names in Bulgarian literature: such as Alek Popov, Georgi Gospodinov, Yordan Eftimov, Angel Igov, Stoil Roshkev, Boris Minkov, Olya Stoyanova, Dimitar Ganev, Yordanka Beleva, Silvia Tomova, Vasil Georgiev, Andon Staykov, Alexander Shpatov, Anton Terziev, and Vladimir Poleganov.
Would you please tell us whether, in the works of the contestants in the 28th edition of the Fund’s competition, you saw the talent of future writers?
It is difficult to form such an opinion from a single story. With one exception, though—Rossen Karamfilov, whose oeuvre I know quite well. But, even without my prediction, he is certainly already a writer.
- Regardless of the fact that, in recent years, the number of authors of short-story has been significantly decreasing, the NEF ‘13 Centuries of Bulgaria’ team believes that our young relaters will continue to create in this specific, and demanding genre to compete and win the Fund’s prize.
What is your opinion, Mr Enev?
In his speech at the award ceremony, jury member Emil Tonev said something very important. The media, especially print media—newspapers and magazines—have abdicated from publishing short stories. But it is mass media that develops a taste for reading and turns newspaper readers into book readers. In practice, nowadays, there are no people in the editorial offices willing to commit themselves to providing short stories, even if they decide to devote a page to this art form. This fact brings me great bitterness.
Writer Deyan Enev, who has been a jury member for the Rashko Sugarev Prize Competition many times over the years, has a rich creative career, with a clear purpose and undeniable achievements.
He graduated from Sofia’s First English Language Secondary School and later completed a degree in Bulgarian Philology at St Kliment Ohridski Sofia University. He has experience in the field of advertising, and has worked as a journalist for newspapers such as Maritsa, Novinar, Express, Otechestven Front, Sega, and Monitor.
He has written over 2,000 journalistic pieces, including interviews, reports, articles, essays, and feuilletons. He has published twelve books, as well as award-winning collections of short stories. His works include ‘Something to Read on the Night Train’ (1987), which won the Southern Spring Debut Book Award; ‘Horse Gospel’ (1992); ‘Manhunter’ (1994), awarded the Annual Fiction Prize by Hristo Botev Publishing House, and translated into Norwegian in 1997; ‘The Slaughter of the Rooster’ (1997); ‘Heads or Tails’ (2000), winner of the Hristo G. Danov National Prize for Bulgarian Fiction and the Annual Literary Award of the Union of Bulgarian Writers; ‘Lord, Have Mercy’ (2004), which won the Helikon Grand Prize for New Bulgarian Prose; ‘A Town Called Mendocino’ (2009); ‘7 Christmas Stories’ (2009); ‘The Little Bulgarian from Alaska. Sofia Stories’ (2011); articles on writers: ‘People of the Pen’ (2009); and Christian essays: ‘A People of Hesychasts’ (2010), and ‘The Little Bulgarian from Alaska’ (2012).
In 2008, the Austrian Deuticke Verlag published a collection of his selected stories in a German translation, under the title ‘Zirkus Bulgarien’. In August 2010, London’s Portobello published his collection of selected short stories, ‘Circus Bulgaria’, in English. His texts for Portal Kultura have been assembled in two books: ‘The Little Home Church. Contemporary Parables’ (2014) and ‘By Law of the Writer’ (2015).
In May 2016, Deyan Enev was awarded the Order of Sts Cyril and Methodius, 1st Class.
Questions posed by Theodora Bankovska
27 April 2026
Translated by Nigrita Davies