American poetess Louise Gluck was awarded the 2020 Nobel Prize in Literature for “her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal”, the Swedish Academy announced last Thursday. Her victory was considered to a certain extent surprising by many experts.

One of the most valuable traits of the Bulgarian national character, as far as such exists, is the ability to live along with the absurdity and to accept the paradoxes of human nature. This is not somethings that came out of good times. The logic of life is stronger than the logic of moral convictions, and survival has always been a priority for the Bulgarians, says writer Alek Popov in an interview to George Dimitrov.

Milan Kundera, the author of “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” and many other acclaimed novels, will donate his private library and archive to a public library in Brno, the city where he was born and spent his childhood, news wires reported. The entire collection will be transported from Kundera’s apartment in Paris to the Moravian Library in Brno in the fall.

Leaving Bulgaria is not just a desire to get out of poverty and earn more money. It is something much more fundamental, which is obviously so significant that most of the emigrants are willing to pay a very high price to have it, Demetra Duleva says in an interview to EUROPOST.

US writer Joyce Carol Oates, so often a bridesmaid for the Nobel literature prize, won France's richest books prize Monday. The Cino del Duca World Prize, which is worth 200,000 euros ($218,000), is often seen as a stepping stone to the Nobel, with Andrei Sakharov, Mario Vargas Llosa and the French novelist Patrick Modiano all winning it before going on to Nobel glory.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is among the least known illnesses. Most specialists consider it unpredictable, changeable and generally incurable. And what is even more fearsome – it attacks mainly active people in their 20s and 30s.

Festival of Hope, organised by European Poetry Platform Versopolis that makes opportunities for emerging poets, and supported by the Commission’s Creative Europe programme, will keep “open” its doors until mid-June.

Haruki Murakami, one of Japan’s most acclaimed novelists, will host a radio special to try to lift the nation’s spirits as the state of emergency over the novel coronavirus continues.

To get immersed in an alien world and make friends with it, to experience the deep emotions, suffering, the hopes and dreams of other people, to become absorbed by the beauty and greatness of the Word, is a spiritual adventure and delight for the soul which at least to a certain extent saves us from this compulsory isolation and the surging fears, says writer Vladimir Zarev in an interview to Monitor.

The acclaimed Chilean writer Luis Sepulveda has died at a hospital in northern Spain some six weeks after testing positive for coronavirus, his publishing house said on Thursday. He was 70.