We are enslaved by the myths of the past

The genre actually is an adventure novel, or an adventure saga if you prefer, given my intent to build a bigger narrative out of this story. Of course, the novel itself plays a lot with the genre of the partisan novel/movie and it often takes on some of the genre’s stylistic qualities, but it doesn’t fulfill any ideological functions and is therefore unsuitable for propaganda of any kind. The sense of humor plays a central role in the story. Throughout the novel, there are many references to pop-culture, pulp fiction and comic books. The late 30’s and the 40’s were the Golden Age of the American comic book, in that period some of the most of inspiring superheroes were created – Superman, Batman, Captain America, Wonder Woman and so on. I created a kind of post-modern environment where American pop-culture, socialist realism and history mingle and interact. However, the structure of the narrative itself remains classical and that makes the novel highly readable.

4. You started the story of The Palaveevi Sisters from today's point of view, from the name of a street in Sofia. How then did the story about the sisters develop?

The story begins in Bulgaria in the 1940’s. The Second World War is raging. Bulgaria is an ally of the Axis. Two girls from an affluent family, the twins Kara and Ira, go on a quest for freedom and adventure, determined to avoid the fate of traditional bourgeois wives. Raised by a British governess, they study in the most elite girls’ school in Sofia and are avid readers of American comic books regularly sent to them by their uncle in the USA. Inspired by a combustible mix of superheroes and leftist ideas, the teens decide to run away from their safe haven to join the partisan rebels. They stage their own kidnapping to provide resources for the revolution, but the plan fails and the twin beauties find themselves lost in the mountains amid a bunch of crude and uptight male fighters led by “comrade” Medved, a tough commander who went through the grueling school of Soviet military counterintelligence. Medved keeps a grim secret about his past and a bitter knowledge of the Stalinist paradise. What follows is a wild journey through tragicomical absurdity, delusions, betrayal, battles, death and survival.

5. Two ideologies clash in the novel. You make fun of both of them. For what purpose?

As I already mentioned, the novel deals a lot with ideologies (inevitably!) without being ideological in itself, which for some people is a source of deep confusion. The story cuts boldly through historical myths and ideological clichés. It takes an unusual – but much needed, in my opinion – approach to the past, which has something in common with Monty Python’s playful satirical stylistic. This approach is very liberating. Here in the Balkans, we are continuously enslaved by the myths of the past. The ghosts of history are still too viable and are exploited unscrup