Vesselin Todorov, President of the Steering Committee of the Bulgarian Book Association, talks about the Spring Book Bazaar and the cultural programme prepared by the organizers of the event, in an interview for Focus News Agency.


Focus: Mr Todorov, what should the visitors of the Spring Book Bazaar expect?
Vesselin Todorov: The Spring Book Bazaar will be held between May 29 and June 3, Sunday. All major Bulgarian publishers will take part in the bazaar, which will be held on the third floor of the National Palace of Culture in Sofia, and as this is a smaller format compared to the Christmas Book Fairs, it is called a bazaar. Most of the books published over the last year will be presented. The books will be offered at between 10% and 20% lower prices than their usual ones. There will also be sales of books for only BGN 5, so from a price point of view, the bazaar will be very attractive. Other interesting things for the visitors will be the possibility to meet popular authors, who will take part in the cultural programme. This cultural programme will be running from the beginning, on Tuesday, to the end, on Sunday, of the bazaar. The very opening of the bazaar will be made by Jorge Bucay and Yordanka Fandakova, Mayor of Sofia, as the Sofia Municipality is a partner of the event. Some of the more interesting authors, who will take part in the cultural programme, include Zachary Karabashliev who will present his new book Symmetry, Ludmila Filipova, Momchil Nikolov, Steven Wingate with his new collection of stories Wife-Shopping, Theodora Dimova, Jorge Bucay, and Ivo Siromahov, who will readers will probably find very interesting, funny and amusing.
The cultural programme is really filled with events, and it will take place on the same location as the bazaar, so that anyone, who visits the Spring Book Bazaar, will be able to enter and take part in the cultural programme, where the access is free, just as the access to the bazaar itself.

Focus: What will be the main accents of this year’s bazaar?
Vesselin Todorov: The very opening of the bazaar will be very interesting, as Jorge Bucay, Yordanka Fandakova, and Fergal Tobin, who is the President of Federation of European Publishers (FEP), will all take part in it. The presence of Mr Tobin will most probably be more interesting for professionals from the branch, but nonetheless it is an interesting name of a person, who is very competent and with very rich experience in the management and development of the entire publishing branch in Europe. Vida Ognenovich – a very famous Serbian writer, who is currently Serbian Ambassador to Norway, will also present her newest novel. A slightly scandalous author - Natalia Gevorkyan, who supports some of the journalists and opposition leaders, who are against Vladimir Putin in Russia, will also take part in the opening.

Focus: Will there be any competitions?
Vesselin Todorov: There will be no awards, we concentrate on such activities during the Christmas Book Fair, as it is closer to the end of the year. During the current bazaar people will have the unique opportunities to meet many authors, like Mikhail Veshim, who will also sign autographs, and Falko Hennig with his novel Criminal Career. There will be cultural programme throughout the day, but the most interesting events will start at around 16:00, and will run until around 20:00, every day. I can mention other names, but in order people to be fully informed, I recommend them to visit the website of the Bulgarian Book Association, where they can see the schedule with events. The most interesting and popular contemporary Bulgarian authors will have premieres of their latest books.