“Bodies live a narrow life, souls are their coasts of rescue.”

The quotation is from the back cover of Yavor Tzanev’s latest collection of short stories ‘Silent as the Grave’, published in 2020 by the Gaiana publishing house. The metaphor of coast of rescue relates to his biography: the writer was born (1971) and lives in Ruse – a city where the aristocratic silhouettes of the old Viennese-style buildings reflect upon the slowly running waters of the Danube – a river which is a geographical representation of the interconnectivity among European cultures and European narratives. The glory of the city is amplified by the fact that it is the birthplace (1905) of the Nobel Prize winner Elias Canetti.

Yavor Tzanev studied book-publishing, librarianship, media and advertising. Until 2009 he worked in the Ruse regional library. He is owner and the manager-proprietor of the Gaiana publishing house. Since 2012 he has been publishing ‘Dracus', a quarterly for fantasy, horror, and detective stories, featuring mostly Bulgarian authors.

His stories have been included in national anthologies, and he has been nominated for literary awards: winner of Svetlostrui national award for prose for the short story collection ‘Wine for the Dead’; Konstantin Konstantinov award (2019) for his novel for children ‘Mischief’; nomination for the Elias Canetti literary prize (2015) for Wine for the Dead; nomination for the Evokon prize (2017) for best writer, best publisher and grandmaster of fantasy.

The list of his short story collections includes ‘The Inn’ (2013),’ Wine for the Dead’ (2013), The ‘Sunflowers’ (2014),’Home, Sweet Home’ (2015), ‘Kissed by God’ (2018).

How would you describe yourself: as a horror writer, fantasy writer or just writer?

Perhaps – just a writer. These other definitions would more appropriately describe the various works of a single author like me. I’m fond of mixing the genres and fond of fusing the boundaries between them. A fantasy text should sound realistic and convincing enough, while a story from our everyday life would not be able to touch the reader without a drop of magic put into it.

You have wonderful stories. Do you use software to invent characters and plots? Where do your stories come from?

Thanks for your high estimation. Your question reminds me of a very amusing book written by Luben Dilov, called ‘The Lost Chance’ (where a computer writes stories using pre-assigned plots and genres), and it makes me smile. If such software really exists, it is surely implanted into me; it picks up plots and characters from the visible world and summons them like spirits into the invisible one.

You have written a sequel to Ray Bradbury’s ‘The Halloween Tree’. Your story about an old and lonely Noah is a kind of a sequel to a biblical story… Why are you fond of creating sequels? Is this the way you communicate with time and literature?

Bradbury says that his stories are myths and myths are eternal. The whole of contemporary literature rests on characters and plots created a long time ago, and it is in constant search of inspiration and new interpretations of the eternal themes. For me, one of the vital characteristics of good literary works is that they are not only easy to remember but are inspirational as well. If you are both a reader and a writer, you feel the need to respond with your own story to something good you have read. In the case of ‘The Halloween Tree’ I was inspired to tell the story of what might happen to Bradbury’s protagonists in the future, and by writing it I paid homage to a favourite author of mine.

Do you listen to music while you write? Jiyagi or Bach? What brings rhythm to your writing?

Yes I do. Often it would be the same album or the same song, over and over again – specific music to create a specific mood for the story I’m writing at that moment. It would be hard rock and heavy metal mostly and their subgenres. There are times, however, when the music distracts me and I prefer the silence. It seems that all depends on the spirit of the moment.

You have organised literary competitions inspired by the works of Stephen King, Ray Bradbury, Edgar Allen Poe. Bradbury says that Poe is his bat-winged cousin, kept under key in the attic. What do authors like Bradbury, King and Poe mean for you? What did you learn from them in regards to horror, fantasy, the writing process, the world and people in general?

Like I said, good authors galvanise us, as writers, with their works; therefore under the auspices of ‘Dracus’ - a magazine published by me - I organised a number of competitions under the motto “Inspired by”. Thus I provoke Bulgarian authors to rediscover old and look for new inspirations. The curiosity of the readers is provoked too because at the end of each competition I publish the prize-winning short stories in a special issue of the magazine. In the list of my inspirational authors are H.P. Lovecraft and Robert Sheckley as well. I am sure that all these writers have influenced my colleagues greatly; if not otherwise, then at least with the immensity of their imagination. It helps writers spread out their invisible wings of creativity.

You graduated from a librarianship college and you have worked in the Ruse regional library. How did your personal labyrinth of dreams and desires bring you there? Did you pass through Borges’ ‘The Library of Babel’ as well?

In fact, I had been working in the library even before I started to study to become a librarian. I was a night watchman there. My being there amidst so many books in the vast and empty building that houses an immeasurable number of pages can recreate the atmosphere of Borges’ ‘The Library of Babel’ to a certain extent.

In ‘A Childhood Memory’ the suspense is aroused and maintained by the search for a forgotten word and the corresponding object, but the main theme is the longing for a lost, more full-blooded way of living. Is that what our world is grieving for?

This short story was written a long time ago and at first glance it tackles the problem of Earth’s overpopulation, but in fact it is about all those imposed changes that pretend to solve a major human problem by muffling mankind’s sensibility or stealing it completely away. Within a single generation both the world and its population are dramatically changed. In this context everyone has their moment of nostalgia and sorrow for times gone by – the space where beautiful memories come from. The world will always grieve a little for its past.

‘Endless misery’ pins us down with the same nails with which a maniac kidnapper has nailed the feet of several musicians to the floor. The focus of the story is again inspiration. Is creative inspiration and irony the counterpoint of horror or not?

This is a short story I wrote for the first competition – the one for texts inspired by Stephen King. I decided that stories written by members of the awards committee could be included in the book as well; I didn’t want good authors to remain unpublished simply because they had agreed to join the jury. Thus it became necessary for me to write something as well. I wanted it to be a story about suffering and inspiration, about guilt and forgiveness, about man’s enormous capacity to survive, and about how life always finds a way to carry on. I think that the influence of King’s novel Misery is quite obvious, since the title contains the word “misery” and its beginning is intentionally similar to that of the novel. As to the counterpoints of horror, I think that they are many because horror has many faces. Inspiration and irony can definitely be such counterpoints.

You turn horror and desolation into existential categories. Sometimes, by using concrete biblical associations you point at their ubiquitousness and timelessness. Are people inconsolable? And if not, can literature be their consolation?

Man is a creature that is aware of its mortality. Such awareness logically brings about horror and desolation. Meanwhile, art broadens our existence in a specific way, and this attribute makes art a consolation as well, along with the many other roles it performs. On the back cover of my last book one can read the following line: “Bodies live a limited life; souls are their coasts of rescue”.

‘The Painkillers’ has won a prize for a fantasy short story. It is a wonderful tale about some gas-like creatures who experience a feeling of happiness each time when, inhaled by a human, they heal him of all of his maladies. However, it happens that they can get addicted to the process, and then they burrow deeply inside the man, inflicting more and more pain, only for the pleasure of healing it. Is writing just such a painkiller?

Thanks for the compliment once again. I wrote ‘The Painkillers’ with pleasure, but there is a lot of pain in it as well. You are asking an interesting question about writing that has never occurred to me, and the question contains the answer in itself - yes, perhaps there is some truth in the following paradox: the writer co-experiences the suffering of his protagonists, but he would only be satisfied by his work if he portrays this suffering plausibly.

You have a story called ‘Unyielding to Time’. What is unyielding to time in life and literature?

The story is about a mythical sword bearing this name because of its peculiar effect on time. At the end the protagonist reveals what he thinks is unyielding, and although his view sounds not very flattering to mankind, it might stimulate us to think. In my own life the theme most unyielding to time is death, as no one knows how much time is left to him. In literature death is one of the eternal themes as well, but to a certain extent we can call the capability of a great author to move us with his words and his style “unyielding to time”, as well as the opportunity for him to share stories, thoughts and emotions with future readers. We see how seminal literary works really achieve this.

How do you maintain the balance of being a writer and a publisher?

I am not sure if I manage to maintain it. I try. I think that sometimes these two occupations are a hindrance to each other, sometimes they help each other. Perhaps I continue to do both because I am interested in the whole process of producing a book, not merely writing it.

Could we read the current moment, I mean the pandemic and all the ways by which it changes mankind or fails to change it, in a story of yours, and which one would that be? Is the present stimulating for writing? Will we see the shadow of the pandemic in some of your future short stories?

Short stories depicting the shadow of an incurable illness can be found in my last book ‘Silent as a Grave’, which came out in 2020, as well as in one of my previous books, ‘Wine for the Dead’. We have already seen that theme in the short story The Painkillers. However, all these texts were written before the coronavirus events and are not influenced by the pandemic. The concurrent theme of what life in isolation looks like is not new to literature either. I expect writers to dip their pens in these two ink pots so rich in plots, and I prefer to focus my attention in other directions. Let us not forget the “never say never“ rule. Is the present moment good for writing? Every moment is good enough. You need two things – a desire to write and something good to tell others.

You have been nominated for the ‘Elias Canetti’ Prize for your collection of short stories ‘Wine for the Dead’. The title story is in essence a reconciliation with the existential horror of dying, and perhaps it creates a lens through which your prose should be read in general. Does my reading of this short story coincide with your own ideas about it?

Sometimes I put in small details or themes different to the one that looks like the main theme of a story. Thus I try to enhance the reader’s involvement with the perception of the story. Therefore, it is always interesting for me to listen to various readings. What we have is a kind of a Rorschach blot because besides the objective text every reader reads lines and themes created by himself. Different readers detect details which are especially important to them and bring these to the foreground. It is important for me to bring several short stories together in a book that have invisible connections between them. Thus a book is created with a shared melody where the voices of the separate stories merge into another, bigger one. Your reading is undoubtedly a legitimate one, and the fact that you talk of a specific lens pleases me. And, certainly, many of the characters in Wine for the Dead accept their gruesome reality and reconcile themselves to it, finding a free space beyond their horrific existence.

Is allowing someone to fall into oblivion the greatest of human sins? The question is provoked by your story about biblical Noah.

No, oblivion is not a sin because it can provide consolation. Ingratitude, however is something different. There is a Latin proverb: “The earth can bring forth nothing worse than an ungrateful man.” Speaking about it, it comes to my mind, that our planet Earth might have exactly the same thought about us. Would this be a fantasy story?

The interview was taken by Teodora Nikolova

Translated by Hristo Dimitrov / Edited by Tom Phillips

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