Julian Barnes   The Porcupine (UK, Picador; US, Vintage o/p). Political satire centring on the trial of deposed Communist dictator Stoyo Petkanov - a fictional character based on Bulgaria's Todor Zhivkov. A telling account of how democratic revolutions can soon degenerate into cynicism and disillusionment.

Malcolm Bradbury   Rates of Exchange (UK, Picador; US, Knopf o/p). Comic novel recounting the misadventures of an English academic sent by the British Council to lecture in the imaginary Communist state of Slaka, loosely based on countries like Bulgaria. As a Westerner's view of the absurdities of life under Communism, it's extremely funny. The same author's Why Come to Slaka? (UK, Picador; US, Penguin o/p) was a less successful send-up of the kind of propagandist tourist literature published by Balkan states before 1989 - although anyone with experience of Bulgaria in those days will find it curiously familiar.

Robert Littel   October Circle (UK, Faber o/p; US, Houghton Mifflin o/p). Cold War thriller concerning a group of young Bulgarian Communists who fall foul of the regime in the aftermath of the Warsaw Pact's 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia. Breezy, undemanding, and with plenty of local colour.