Miroslav Penkov is a Bulgarian writer who writes in English and Bulgarian. He was born in Gabrovo in Bulgaria in 1982, lived in Sofia for fourteen years and in 2001, at the age of 18, moved to the United States of America. He studied for a bachelor's degree in psychology and an M.F.A. in creative writing at the University of Arkansas. He teaches creative writing at the University of North Texas, where he is a fiction editor for the '' American Literary Review''. His stories have been translated in over a dozen languages and have appeared in ''

A Public Space ''A Public Space'' is a nonprofit triquarterly English-language literary magazine based in Brooklyn, New York. First published in April 2006, ''A Public Space'' publishes fiction, poetry, essays and art. The magazine's Focus portfolios have exam ...

'', '' Granta, '' One Story'', '' The Southern Review'', '' The Sunday Times'', '' The Best American Short Stories 2008'' (edited by Salman Rushdie), '' The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2012'' and '' The Best American Nonrequired Reading'' 2013.

Awards and honors

In 2007, his short story "Buying Lenin" won '' The Southern Review's'' Eudora Welty Prize in Fiction. In 2012, his story "East of the West" won the

BBC International Short Story Award BBC National Short Story Award is a British literary award for short stories. It was founded in 2005 by the NESTA (the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts) with support from BBC Radio 4 and ''Prospect (magazine), Prospect'' mag ...

. In 2014, Penkov was selected as a protégé by mentor Michael Ondaatje as part of the

Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative Rolex SA () is a British-founded Swiss watch designer and manufacturer based in Geneva, Switzerland. Founded in 1905 as ''Wilsdorf and Davis'' by Hans Wilsdorf and Alfred Davis in London, the company registered ''Rolex'' as the brand name of ...

, an international philanthropic programme that pairs masters in their disciplines with emerging talents for a year of one-to-one creative exchange.http://www.rolexmentorprotege.com/pairing/2014-2015/michael_ondaatje_and_miroslav_penkov

Works

*''East of the West: A Country in Stories'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2011 (US, first edition). *''Stork Mountain: A Novel'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2016 (US, first edition).

References

External links

Official website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Penkov, Miroslav Living people 1982 births Bulgarian male writers American short story writers People from Gabrovo Bulgarian expatriates in the United States