(1919 - 2002)

Nikolai Haytov was born in the Rhodope village of Yavorovo. He finished high school in Assenovgrad and graduated from the Higher Institute of Forestry in Sofia. His first article was published in 1954 in the journal Septemvri; his articles and essays which came out in the newspapers Rabotnichesko delo, Kooperativno selo, etc. were collected in his first published book Sapernitsi [Rivals] (1957). Haytov was member of the Bulgarian Writers’ Union since 1959; he was editor in the Narodna kultura newspaper and the journal Nasha rodina, as well as editor-in-chief of the journal Rodopi. Haytov was secretary (1966-1968) and president (1993-1999) of the Union of Bulgarian Writers, president of the Capital City Council for Culture (1975-1977); he was elected an Academician of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in 1997.

Haytov was author of diverse in genre and topics works – of over ten plays, of hundreds of articles and essays, reviews, notes, of short stories, of ethnographic and biographic research papers. Among his most popular books are Shumki ot gabar [Hornbeam Foliage] (1965), Divi razkazi [Wild Stories] (1967), Bodlivata roza [Thorny Rose] (1975), Grobat na Levski [Levski’s Grave] (1987), Troyanski kone v Bulgaria [Trojan Horses in Bulgaria] (2002, posthumously), Belezhki po teftercheto na Vasil Levski [Notes on Vassil Levski’s Notebook] (2007, posthumously). He was scriptwriter of the following films Koziyat rog [The Goat Horn], Muzhki vremena [When Men Were Men], Krayat na pesenta [The End of the Song], Darvo bez koren [A Tree Without Roots], Orisiya [Fate], Kapitan Petko voyvoda [Captain Petko Voivode], among others.



In 1976 Haytov won the World Contest for Short Story in Arnsberg, Germany. He was awarded the Dimitrov Prize for Prose, the Yordan Yovkov National Literary Award, the Vazov Award for Literature. In 2000 he received the Order of Stara Planina.



Nikolay Haytov’s works have been translated into English by Michael Holman.

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