(1880 - 1937)

Yovkov was born in the village of Zheravna, near Sliven. He finished high school in Sofia and enrolled at the Faculty of Law of Sofia University. He was a teacher in different villages in the Dobrudzha region until 1912. He took part in the three wars (the First and Second Balkan Wars and WW1); worked as editor in army periodicals, as librarian and editor in the journal of the Ministry of the Interior and People’s Health. He was teacher in Varna (1920), diplomat in the Bulgarian mission in Bucharest (1920-1927), and also civil servant in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.



Between 1902 and 1911 his poems appeared in different periodicals; his first short story Ovcharova zhalba [Shepherd’s Lament] was published in 1910. The most significant works from his army days were collected in two volumes of Short Stories, published in 1917 and 1918 respectively. He is author of the long short story Zhetvaryat [Harvester] (1920) and of additional seven collections of short stories (1926-1936), among which the most famous are Staroplaninski legendi and Vecheri v Antimovskiya han [The Inn at Antimovo and Legends of Stara Planina], of the novels Chiflikut kray granitsata [Frontier Homestead] (1934) and Priklyucheniyata na Gorolomov [Gorolomov’s Adventures] (unfinished), as well as the plays Albena, Boryana, Obiknoven chovek [Ordinary Man], Milionerut [The Millionaire].



Yovkov’s works offer a creative synthesis of realism and romanticism; his texts are indicative of insightful treatment of tensions within traditional values, of the tragic nature of existence, of the power of beauty to bring about salvation or ruin.



The works of Yordan Yovkov have been translated into English by Marguerite Alexieva, Marco Mincoff, John Burnip, Michael Holman, M. Cholakova, and V.D. Mihailovich.

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