Yordan Radichkov is the most original fiction writer and playwright in Bulgarian literature in the second half of the twentieth century, one who has created works that are appreciated both within his country and abroad. The recognition of his talent, however, did not come easily. The difficulty in accepting his writing came partly from the inertia of the general reading public, whose taste had been formed by the norms and values of the traditional discourse, and partly from the fact that Radichkov's works did not comply with the rules of the so-called method of socialist realism, which many official literary critics tried to enforce. Initially the author had a relatively small but extremely enthusiastic group of admirers, mostly among the young generation. During the 1960s the number of people who began to appreciate his witty parodies, intricate grotesques, and colorful imagery grew rapidly. In the 1970s, although there...