Short stories
Последна радост
Not translated into English
Yordan Yovkov · 1926
Opening lines
Градът бързо се подновяваше и растеше.
The town was quickly renewing itself and growing.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from chitanka.info
Synopsis
Dernière joie: a collection of stories, opened by the short story that gives it its title. It begins in a small town and presents a few of its figures: old Slavi and his tin medals, Ratcho the broker, poor and rebellious, Krastan the butcher, and above all Lioutskan, the only flower seller, an orphan who knows what flowers mean and whose very name makes people smile. The world of peace and the world of war meet at the railway station, when peaceable men become soldiers.
Context
The volume appeared in 1926, during the years when the author was working in Bucharest. Its opening story, in ten parts, is dated 1920 by the Chitanka library and by the Lithuanian encyclopaedia. The book was reprinted by Hemus at the beginning of the 1930s, with the same stories, under the title Pesenta na koleletata, the title story moving to the interior; Ivan Stankov notes that it was the author's only title to speak of an ending, and sees in this change the passage to a cyclical time.
Who it is for
Stories to be taken one at a time, the first of which, in ten parts, reads like a short novella; no French or English translation has been found.
Prizes and reception
The title story is set for the Bulgarian matriculation examinations, as it appears in the reissue of the collection.