(1902 - 1966)
Svetoslav Minkov was born in Radomir. He had his secondary education in Sofia, then went to the Military school in Weisskirchen (Austria), and later studied Slavic Philology at Sofia University. In 1922-1923 he was reading at the Academy of Industry and Economics in Munich. When he came back, he had the job of a librarian at the National Library (1924-1925). In 1942-1943, he was an officer in the service of the Bulgarian diplomatic mission in Tokyo. After 9th September 1944, he was a corrector at the Rabotnichesko delo newspaper (1944-1945), an editor at the Otechestven front newspaper (1946) and at Bulgarian Cinematography (1952-1954). He was the editor in chief (1954-1956) and an editor (1956-1962) of the Balgarski pisatel publishing house. Minkov published his first text (Binomat na Newton [Newton’s Binomial]) in the Balgaran magazine in 1920.
Svetoslav Minkov published collections of diabolical short stories: Sinyata hrizantema [The Blue Chrysanthemum] (1922), Chasovnik [The Clock] (1924), Ognenata ptitsa [Fiery Bird] (1927), Igra na senkite [Dancing Shadows] (1928), Kashtata pri posledniya fener [The House at the Last Lantern] (1931). In 1933, Konstantin Konstantinov and Svetoslav Minkov co-authored and published the grotesque novel Sartseto v kartonena kutiya [The Heart in a Cardboard Box]. Minkov demonstrated a wide spectre of themes and various aesthetic versions of humour in his collections of satirical stories from the 1930s: Avtomati [Machine-guns] (1932), Damata s rentgenovite ochi [The Lady with the X-ray Eyes] (1934), Razkazi v taralezhova kozha [Tales in a Hedgehog Skin] (1936). He is the author of travelogues (Drugata Amerika [The Other America], 1938; Imperiya na glada [The Empire of Hunger], 1952), a book of sketches (Madrid gori [Madrid in Flames], 1936), the study Yaponskata literatura. Nachalo, razvitie, predstaviteli [Japanese Literature: Origins, Development, Representatives] (1941), books for children, etc. He translated G. Meyrink’s Der Golem and Der weiße Dominikaner, Andersen’s fairy tales, and Scheherazade’s stories.
Minkov’s prose experiments with the aesthetics of the absurd and with the fluctuation between fact and fiction, from the culturally familiar to the distant and foreign style of life.
He was awarded the international Nexo Prize for peace.
A couple of Minkov’s short stories have been translated into English by Elena Mladenova and Krassimira Noneva.
Svetoslav Minkov published collections of diabolical short stories: Sinyata hrizantema [The Blue Chrysanthemum] (1922), Chasovnik [The Clock] (1924), Ognenata ptitsa [Fiery Bird] (1927), Igra na senkite [Dancing Shadows] (1928), Kashtata pri posledniya fener [The House at the Last Lantern] (1931). In 1933, Konstantin Konstantinov and Svetoslav Minkov co-authored and published the grotesque novel Sartseto v kartonena kutiya [The Heart in a Cardboard Box]. Minkov demonstrated a wide spectre of themes and various aesthetic versions of humour in his collections of satirical stories from the 1930s: Avtomati [Machine-guns] (1932), Damata s rentgenovite ochi [The Lady with the X-ray Eyes] (1934), Razkazi v taralezhova kozha [Tales in a Hedgehog Skin] (1936). He is the author of travelogues (Drugata Amerika [The Other America], 1938; Imperiya na glada [The Empire of Hunger], 1952), a book of sketches (Madrid gori [Madrid in Flames], 1936), the study Yaponskata literatura. Nachalo, razvitie, predstaviteli [Japanese Literature: Origins, Development, Representatives] (1941), books for children, etc. He translated G. Meyrink’s Der Golem and Der weiße Dominikaner, Andersen’s fairy tales, and Scheherazade’s stories.
Minkov’s prose experiments with the aesthetics of the absurd and with the fluctuation between fact and fiction, from the culturally familiar to the distant and foreign style of life.
He was awarded the international Nexo Prize for peace.
A couple of Minkov’s short stories have been translated into English by Elena Mladenova and Krassimira Noneva.
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All spellings; Минков, Светослав; Minkov, Svetoslav; Minkow, Swetoslaw; Minkov, Svetoslav Konstantinov 