Ivan Davidikov (trans Ewald Osers) Fires of the Sunflower (UK, Forest; US, Dufour). Representative range of works by a well-respected contemporary lyric poet.

Blaga Dimitrova (trans Brenda Walker and Belin Tonchev) The Last Rock Eagle (UK, Forest Books). Bulgaria's most popular contemporary poet, Blaga Dimitrova was a prominent anti-Communist in the late 1980s, and served briefly as vice-president in 1992-93.

Nikolai Haitov   Wild Tales (UK, Peter Owen; US, Dufour). Short stories set in the rural communities of the Rhodope Mountains, from a popular contemporary Bulgarian author.

Lyubomir Levchev (trans Ewald Osers) Stolen Fire (UK, Forest; US, Dufour). Levchev was a Central Committee member and president of the Writers' Union under the old regime, but despite occasional flashes of ideological content most of his work is unashamedly personal and emotional.

Geo Milev (trans Ewald Osers) Roads to Freedom (UK, Forest). Milev's death at the hands of the reactionary Tsankov regime in 1925 made him into one of socialist Bulgaria's favourite left-wing martyrs, but it's often forgotten that he was a ground-breaking modernist poet who borrowed from expressionism and other Western styles.

John Naughton (ed) The Traveller's Literary Companion to East and Central Europe (UK, In Print). The Bulgarian section of this book, written by Sofia-based critic Belin Tonchev, contains an excellent overview of Bulgarian literary history, accompanied by extracts from the works of major Bulgarian authors.

Viktor Paskov   A Ballad for Georg Henig (UK, Peter Owen; US, Dufour). Acclaimed Bulgarian novel of the 1980s, recounting, in mildly Kafkaesque manner, the story of an elderly Sofia violin maker who has somehow managed to be overlooked on all official state records.

Belin Tonchev (ed) Young Poets of a New Bulgaria (UK, Forest; US, Dufour). A collection of more than twenty poets, mixing those who did well under the old regime with those who suffered for their anti-Communist convictions. Other anthologies published by Forest/Dufour are Poets of Bulgaria and The Devil's Dozen , a collection of women poets, including work by Blaga Dimitrova.

Yordan Yovkov (trans John Burnip) The Inn at Antimovo and Legends of the Stara Planina (UK/US Slavika). Twentieth-century novelist Yovkov was born in Zheravna in the eastern Stara Planina (the Balkan Range), and this collection of short stories recalls the atmosphere of small-town life under the Ottoman occupation.