The Sofia City Library presented on Tuesday at an official ceremony the 6^th annual awards Reader and Writer of the Year. “Thirst”, “Havra” and “18% Gray” by Zachary Karabashliev are the best selling titles of 2019. It is as if we remain blind to the beauty of the world, Zachary Karabashliev said during the award ceremony.

My last book is about the world of the visually-impaired people and was inspired by the real story of Spas Karafezov (Chairman of the National Community Center for the Blind Louis Braille), the Bulgarian writer went on to say. He is one of the youngest spirits i know, because when he was eighteen he lost his eyesight, but the insidious disease did not affect his spirit, his mind and his pursuit of knowledge. Spiritual misery and ignorance responsible for social inequality, totalitarian regimes, fascist regimes, Nazi regimes, Bolshevism, etc, are much worse than blindness. We live in society, which is in sharp deficit of empathy. We should not look only, but see and think instead.

Zdravka Evtimova received the award for contemporary Bulgarian bestseller with her book July Stories. She is an author of four novels. Her stories are translated in many counties. One of her novels– “Blood” is studied in literature classes in American schools. 

Literature is the shortest distance between human hearts, Zdravka Evtimova says. Writers and readers create together, because there is no writing, if we don’t read the destinies, the love and the pain of the people. Only two types of pain feel good– one of them is when a child is born and when this pain ends with a healthy, happy bundle of life and hope. Writing is the second pain that feels good. We can also call it happiness, freedom and chains. I hope this pain would never leave me.

The explorer of archives in the near past Hristo Hristov reached highest number of people interested in science literature and popular science literature.

I am especially grateful to those readers who opened the books about the totalitarian and communist past and its crimes, Hristo Hristov says. Undoubtedly, this topic will be rediscovered. It enters the 10^th grade history books in a separate section and with new terminology for the first time. I would like to thank Professor Vili Lilkov. This award is also for him, because our last book Bulgaria Undone is also present in this ranking.

Radostina Nikolova’s mystic creatures (Motts) attracted highest interest among children.

When I visited a regional library I came across one of the first books of the series “Adventures of the Motts”, the author says. It was extremely shabby, yet a happy book. Then, I imagined how many homes it went through and how many stories and smiles it shared. It would not have been possible without the libraries. That is why we should support all small school and community center libraries.

The youngest reader of the library Krisi also received a prize. The four and a half years old girl is among the twenty eight thousand people who received reader’s card in the past five years.

English version: Kostadin Atanasov