Nikolay Khaytov is one of the most highly respected figures in Bulgarian cultural life in the last third of the twentieth century and the contemporary Bulgarian writer best known by readers outside Bulgaria. His principal claim to fame is his 1967 collection of short stories, Divi razkazi (translated as Wild Tales, 1979); his oeuvre also includes many other short stories as well as sketches, other prose writings (but no novels), several plays, and journalistic pieces and essays in many periodicals and newspapers, only a small part of which has been collected and republished in his Izbrani proizvedeniya (Selected Works, 1979, 1989).

Khaytov was born into a poor Bulgarian peasant family on 15 September 1919. The family lived in Yavrovo, near Plovdiv. Khaytov's mother was illiterate, and he and his two brothers had to struggle for an education. He did go to school and was, after passing an exam, admitted to high school, but, due...