Bulgarian Author Nominated for BBC Short Story Award

Young Bulgarian author, Miroslav Penkov, has become the first Bulgarian to be nominated for the BBC Short Story Award i

Penkov, 29, who since 2001 studies and lives in the US, and currently teaches creative writing at the North Texas University, is nominated with his short story East of the West, the Bulgarian online news site Dnevnik reports. The story is part of the writer's short stories collection with the same title, which has already been published in ten countries.

I'm very happy that my story "East of the West" has been shortlisted for the BBC International Short Story Award 2012. The story will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in a few days time and I'll post the link here, so you can hear it. It should be fun. Oh, and the shortlist looks terrific... have a look," the author has written on his Facebook page.

The official Awards site writes the following:

For one year only, an Award established to recognize and foster talent within the UK will seek to reflect the enormous richness and versatility of the short story internationally and to highlight exceptional talent from around the world. The BBC International Short Story Award 2012 is open to writers writing in English anywhere in the world who have been published in the UK.

For this reason, the list of finalists includes 10 stories, instead of the first edition's 5. They are: 'Escape Routes' by Lucy Caldwell, 'The iHole' by Julian Gough, 'Even Pretty Eyes Commit Crimes' by M J Hyland, 'The Goose Father' by Krys Lee, 'Black Vodka' by Deborah Levy, 'East of the West' by Miroslav Penkov, 'Sanctuary' by Henrietta Rose-Innes, 'In the Basement' by Adam Ross, 'Before he Left the Family' by Carrie Tiffany, and 'A Lovely and Terrible Thing' by Chris Womersley

People can listen to the stories daily on Radio 4 from Monday 17th September

The full judging panel is: radio host Clive Anderson (chair), writers Anjali Joseph, Ross Raisin, Michele Roberts and the literary editor of BBC Radio, Di Speirs.

The Award is now well established as one of the most prestigious for a single short story, with the winning author receiving GBP 15 000. The winner will be announced live on the radio on October 2.

Penkov's short story collection has been published in Bulgarian, but the original texts have been written in English and then translated in Bulgarian by the author himself.

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