The Modern Novel

Biography

Svetoslav Minkov was born in 1902 in Radomir. His father was a military colonel. His high school was in Sofia, before going to Weiskirchen, Austria to the military school there. His teacher in high school, Bojan Angelov, later known as a literary critic, recognised his literary talent and interest in literature and encouraged him. After a brief period at Sofia University , he went to Munich, where he moved in Bohemian circles. He became interested in diabolism, a literary movement that is concerned with the irrational, fantastic, spooky and grotesque and influenced by the Gothic novel and German Romanticism, particularly the works of E.T.A. Hoffmann.

He returned to Bulgaria, where he worked as a librarian and became involved in the anti-Fascist movement. He was implicated in the April 1925 terrorist attack and was arrested and imprisoned. He was released after two months and worked as a librarian and an editor. He travelled extensively and worked in the Bulgarian embassy in Tokyo for a while. He wrote numerous stories, often using the fantastic and the absurd, some of which have been translated into West European languages. He died in 1966.

Other links

Svetoslav Minkov
Bulgarian Science Fiction Between the East and the West – II. Svetoslav Minkov and the Diabolic Fate of SF Writers Who Tried Their Hand at Publishing
Svetoslav Minkov (in Bulgarian)