Miroslav Penkov was born in Bulgaria in 1982 and came to the United States in 2001. The Guardian praised is first story collection, East of the West (2012) for its combination of “toughness, vulnerability and bravado.” The New Republic wrote, “These stories are not the promising work of a first-time author. They are already a promise fulfilled—wise, bright, and deep with sympathy.” East of the West was published in eleven countries, and Penkov’s translation of his work was the bestselling book in Bulgaria in 2013.

Miroslav publishes his first novel, Stork Mountain, this month. The novel tells the story of an emigrant who returns from America to search for his grandfather, a man who disappeared three years before into the Strandja Mountains on the Bulgarian-Turkey border. The young man encounters the ecstatic Christianity of the region, the mysteries surrounding his grandfather’s life, and the shameful secrets of the past.

Charles Dee Mitchell brings to The Wild Detectives his series First Hearings, where he’ll be curating readings of interesting authors.

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