"I believe I do not fit into the clichéd image of Bulgarian writers"

“For me, writing is not an end in itself or a calling, neither something that I would like to do until the end of my life. This is something I enjoy at this particular time. Literature and art in general are things that should be fun and nothing more” - these were the words of lawyer Vasil Georgiev in an interview for Radio Bulgaria last year following the release of his third collection of short stories entitled Degrad.
Exactly one year later, the book earned the most prestigious literary award in Bulgaria "Helicon" for 2011, but the author proves the saying that appetite comes with eating. After the publication of three collections of short stories within four years, today he says with his characteristic jocular tone "I am no longer interested in writing short stories", and admits that he has given himself a year of time to finish his first novel which he has already begun.
Vasil is one of the few young contemporary writers who talk about writing as fun and even as a slightly frivolous activity, but who commits to writing itself with the utmost dedication and professionalism. He is different from most writers - he is positive, cheerful and fun. He is different even if only because in school he was very good at maths and very mediocre at literature. I have always loved reading, but I was never able to write”, he admits surprisingly.

“At school, I was never good at writing the required essays and compositions. And at that time, I thought I was no different from everyone else and had average intellectual abilities. High school is like in a laboratory where you can shape your intellect. You shape all your concepts and thought categories and when I was younger, I never imagined that these categories are actually wrong and I would rather need to fight them rather than accept them unconditionally. I reached this conclusion later in life. Then I lost my inner poise and stopped studying. In my opinion, school should make students think more and be independent personalities”.
Young Vasil dreamed of becoming an astronaut, then a teacher, and finally his dreams just stretched to earning a higher education degree because he thought it would never happen. He was admitted to university at the second attempt, and the secret to being among the students in the most prestigious specialty Law in Sofia University Kliment Ohridski lies in the fact that he simply learned by heart all topics for the required exam in literature. Today, Vasil Georgiev is not only an award-winning writer, but also a PhD in European Law and a lecturer in graduate programs at the oldest university in Bulgaria – one of life’s little ironies, he jokes. The beginning of his professional writing adventure began as a rivalry with his close friend, another Bulgarian writer Radoslav Parushev, whom he knows for more than 15 years now. 

"I have said many times that my writing was provoked by him. Radoslav began to write, to publish in journals, to get to know famous people and perhaps I envied him”, Vasil Georgiev says with a smile." The truth is that I attempted to write poetry as a child, fortunately this time passed and no one will ever witness the results. I had my first story in my mind for four or five years before I put it to paper, but I was constantly telling myself that I should try. So I wrote a page and a half and it worked. This is one of the first short stories from the collection "Buddhist beach", Georgiev told our reporter Vessela Krasteva.
Vasil Georgiev’s debut collection "Buddhist beach" was released in 2008 and contains 25 emotional, rather intuitive stories about the inner self-awareness while “Degrad” is more a book about the place of the individual in the world, according to the author. He was very close to earning the "Helicon" award for 2009 with this first publication but there was one vote more in favor of "Brief History of the Airplane" of Bulgarian writer Zachary Karabashliev, who is living in the United States. However, he recalls his first steps as a writer with much love. 

"I'm happy and I think that my success is largely due to my own efforts. I'm a stubborn and energetic person and I know how the media world functions and I was able to present the book as a product. We managed to create a reaction with no budget, otherwise the book would remain anonymous. It is also very important who the writer is as a person. If he or she is rather introvert, which is a good thing, then it will be harder for them to promote their books. One has to separate the creative process and the book as a product. As a product, it is something that has to be sold."
Vasil Georgiev’s second collection of short stories is entitled “Stories of Sofia Streets", or this is rather an unusual insight into the personalities and events to which the streets in the Bulgarian capital are named. It was released in 2010 and is actually a collection of texts from a column that he has been writing for six years now in the freely distributed magazine "One week in Sofia". He perceives writing this column as the ultimate writing exercise.

Today, Vasco defines his writing as social. “We have long lived with the idea that social writing gives answers. Bulgarian social literature has always been associated with giving answers and offering people ideologies to follow. To me social writing means asking the right questions”, says the tenth winner of the Helicon book award. He insists on making it clear that he definitely does not fit the cliché of "Bulgarian writer" - namely an Eastern European writer who deals with the great problems of his small region, writes about the mafia, includes a beautiful female character and pours his soul into the pages to make everyone see the depth of his eastern, powerful, semi-Russian, Slavic spirituality.

"The most dangerous thing for a writer is to delve into his or her own personal stories. I'm exhausted in telling my personal experiences. What matters are the universal stories that emphasize the important things in such a way that they do not seem trivial. I’m done with personal stories now. I no longer write the same way I did in my first collection and I never will. In the future I plan to experiment with a completely different way of writing. First, I intend to deal with larger forms because they allow for greater exchange of ideas between people, because I think the most important thing in a book is to confront some ideas and to create a conflict”, Vasil Georgiev says.
This was an interview with Bulgarian writer Vasil Georgiev who was given the Helicon prize in literature for 2011.

Translated by Rossitsa Petcova