Todor P. Todorov is a Bulgarian philosopher and writer. His novel 2022 HagabulaHagabula was awarded the Bulgarian National Literary Prize, was shortlisted for the 2024 European Union Prize for Literature, when he received a Special Mention, and has been translated into Italian, Albanian, Hungarian and Turkish. Todorov debuted with a short stories collection, Tales for Melancholic Children 2010) and continued with a second one in 2012 ̶ Always the Night , both translated into German, while several stories were translated in English and published in the UK. Todor P. Todorov has been a guest writer at many book fairs and festivals in Europe. Todor P. Todorov attended Bookfest 2026 International Book Fair in Bucharest, where Bulgaria was guest of honor.
You are a philosopher, a university professor and a fiction writer. How has your career as a reader started? Which are the books which shaped your path?
I started reading as a child and quickly went to sci-fi. Of course, there were some children‘s books but I was never attracted to Mayne Reid, books about cowboys and Indians or Jules Verne, who were very popular among boys my age. So, there was this Galactica series publishing great sci-fi. And sci-fi was surviving censorship, it was possible to sneak past ideology with spaceships and aliens. Many books shaped my path and they still do. Reading is always at the start, it’s always about new beginnings, discoveries, it is about a recurring reinvention of the self and what we might call reality.
And how have you turned into a writer yourself?
I began writing when I was six or seven. I wrote about aliens, distant planets, space expeditions, and generally all I was consumed by back then. The 1980’s were a great time for sci-fi, in literature as well as in cinema and tv. So, I wrote a lot of short sci-fi stories, most of them just ideas or unfinished projects. My parents both worked at a publishing house, my mom was a translator, so books and literature were all around me. I was seduced by the magic of the world of books. But it was much later that I realized this is what I want and what I have to do in this life.
You published your first short stories collection, Tales for Melancholic Children, in 2010 at Ciela Publishing House. How have you initiated the collaboration with the publishing house and how did it develop?
Finding a publisher was hard at first as a new author. The collaboration with Ciela started when I met Svetlozar Zhelev who was head of publishing at the time. And he has done a lot for me in my career since then. He just liked what I was doing and made it possible that my first collection of short stories appeared. Next year I published my second one - Always the Night.
Both books have been translated into German. How have you managed to have them translated and published?
Well, I found this publishing house in Germany - Groessenwahn Verlag that had started the Via Egnatia series and was interested in new emerging writers from Caucasus and Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, and the Balkans in general. I met them at the Thessaloniki Book Fair and a new journey started for me.
Has this presence on the German market influenced your literary career?
It was a small, independent publishing house and in Germany the market is monstrous. So, I didn’t become that visible or turn into a star, but it opened a new chapter in my life. I did a bit of touring with my books in Germany, went to festivals and even took part in the Greek-German literary festival on the island of Crete.
Your next book, the novel Hagabulawas published ten years after the previous book. How have you switched to a novel and to a new publishing house, this time Janet45?
I wanted to write a novel for a long time already. It’s a voyage on a different scale. You get to literally create worlds, reach deeper depths, evolve your characters. So to speak, you get a huge canvas in front of you, and it’s an invitation I was feeling with me for a long time. Also as a process it’s quite different from writing short stories. And I’m very much into it now. At the moment I’m completing my new novel and I’m already full of fresh ideas. I discovered I’m a novelist. As for the publishing house, it was a matter of personal and professional decision on my side.
Hagabula won the Bulgarian National Literary Prize, one of the most important literary awards in Bulgaria. Has this influenced the public’s reception or the sales? How much does a national literary prize weigh in a writer’s career?
It does weigh in. At least it sets new standards and expectations on a personal level. It delivers some recognition. And that could be a powerful engine. For sure it brought a lot of attention toward the book, more sales, and new challenges.
The novel was also nominated for the 2024 European Union Prize for Literature, receiving a special mention. What about this international acclaim, has it augmented your local recognition or what were its echoes?
Yes, it did produce more local attention and recognition for sure. But more importantly it opened a lot of new gates for me. The EUPL is a special kind of prize, it is focused on supporting translations and helping books achieve more international acclaim. After the Special Mention Hagabula was translated and published in Italy, Albania, Hungary, soon it will come out in Turkey. Other editions are in process. Hopefully one day it will also reach Romanian readers.
‘Hagabula’ is said to be a word borrowed by witches from nature, symbolizing the awakening and turning of the world. In your novel, you turn upside down parts of history and geography, while following the quest of the XVIth century Spaniard Hernán Cortes and his companions. How has this story emerged and developed?
It is truly inexplicable how new ideas emerge. Thought and imagination rely on mystery. I had the idea for some years. I even wrote a short story with a similar alternative history plot. But at that time turning this into a novel seemed almost impossible. I thought maybe I will come back to it at a later stage of my career, when I’m ready. Because I knew it will be an epic and complex story. Then at a crucial point in my life I took the risk. I just dived in and it worked out pretty well for me. Suddenly, before even finishing, I was aware the novel was already there.
Your prose dwells on challenging topics like identity and humanity’s future. How much does your fiction filter your philosophical research and interest?
Thinking and writing are inseparable. Philosophy was originally a literary genre. And it probably still is. I guess sometimes literature is able to say more than philosophy which has become scientifically rigorous. So of course, ideas that excite me as a philosopher, as a thinker, I bring into my literature. But it’s not that I really “bring” them from somewhere else, they were always already there. I believe, as Heidegger puts it, that language is the house of being and poets and thinkers are its guardians.
How do you start writing your stories? Do you have a character already in mind, the very beginning of the book or maybe a plot twist?
It depends. Sometimes the first thing I have is the ending. That was the case with Hagabula. Otherwise, it could be a premonition, an atmospheric feeling, some specific setting or a central organizing image that gives a framework, draws some paths or even a whole map. The rest is like a labyrinth, a journey.
In a time when an author’s public appearance is becoming more and more important, how much do you involve in the marketing and promotion activities of your publishing house? Is it important for a writer in Bulgaria to constantly meet his readers or have a constant and active presence in social media?
At some point that becomes a part of your routine. Taking part in festivals, book fairs, talks, giving interviews… Social media is important today, but I don’t think a writer should be self-promoting 24/7 on Instagram as if being some model or influencer. Promotion activities do matter, but often they steal the time I need to spend on my writing. I think a writer should not be that obsessed with marketing issues, but rather focus on his or her work. And it’s a lonely kind of work. We writers are like hermits and metaphorically speaking we need our mountains, our deserts and caves more than we need any of the noise surrounding the book publishing business. After all, it’s not all about business.
You have attended many literary festivals and international book fairs. Do you have a special memory from these that deserves to be told or turned into a story in a book?
Anything can be turned into a story. I’ve had plenty of memorable moments at festivals and book fairs. For a writer anything can become extraordinary, exceptional. Because the imaginary always overwhelms the real. And writers dwell in the imaginary.
“The role of this novel is to return us to the common human, the magical, the forgotten, to teach us to ‘guard the heart’, as Ophelia tries to teach Hernán, and to arrive with dignity and hope to our personal hagabula”, mentions The Bulgarian Book Association in their laudation for your novel. Have you reached your personal hagabula? What does it consist of?
There is a dedication in the book: to Severina, my hagabula. Тhis is as personal as it gets. Writing the novel coincided with a disaster like Covid, but also with a decisive moment in my life. That year changed it all. You could say I moved to a different world. And that’s what hagabula is about - new birth, new life.
[Photos used with Todor P. Todorov’s approval.]
