Alexander Shpatov’s book “Live from Sofia” presented on the large-scale digital platform Europe Readr

Dear friends,

 Bulgarian Cultural Institute London is pleased to present to you the Bulgarian participation in the large-scale free reading platform Europe Readr, implemented by the Network of National Institutes for Culture of the European Union (EUNIC).  This is the book of the young and talented Bulgarian author Alexander Shpatov “Live from Sofia”.

About the author:

Alexander Shpatov, 35, was born and raised in Sofia, Bulgaria and has never left his city for more than two weeks. He has been awarded the National Best Fiction Debut Prize for 2005 and the Sofia Award for Literature for 2015. Alexander is chairman of the Association for Small Urban Libraries, a real estate lawyer, a PhD student in Theory of Reading and a tour guide around the literature landmarks of Sofia.

 

Synopsis:

The collection “#LiveFromSofia” contains 21 stories that take us by the hand in a friendly way and take us on an exciting walk around the capital – as it lives and boils in the author Alexander Shpatov, “his” Sofia. The book is published on September 1, 2014 in Bulgarian, and a little later in English.

When was the last time you looked around you – in the streets, buildings, roofs, small corners, people and their faces? What makes us call our city “ours”? The stories will make you experience Sofia again and again, and in many different ways – both cozy and new. Sounds and events close to each of us come to life on the pages of “LiveFrom Sofia”, intimately shared by Alexander Shpatov, with whom we seem to sit in a nice bar and drink beer, telling eternal Sofia stories. Such is the style of Shpatov – friendly, non-committal, close to each of us, casual, alive.

The collection draws us into experiences and adventures that we have the feeling that we ourselves have gone through – so close and painfully familiar that it is as if our voice – the voice of all living in the capital, speaks. Stories like these may have happened to us years ago, one, yesterday, may happen today, or tomorrow – in Sofia it is never boring, that’s why we love her, that’s why Shpatov loves her and “tells”.

After the last story, we are ready for new adventures – in our favorite city, where memories lurk around every corner, an echo of laughter, past and future adventures – and because of all this is “our Sofia”, which we will continue to rediscover.

 

About the project

The project Europe Readr includes a free digital platform for reading books, with a wide range of European literature with globally current topics. The platform includes works from every country from the European Union in all the 24 native languages.

In Great Britain, the project Europe Readr includes a series of live  podcasts and events, which also are being broadcast online and take place in person. This way they’re able to explore issues related to the future of life on different levels in the post- pandemic era.