Yordán Radichkov (Kalimánitsa, 1929 – Sófia, 2004). Novelist, playwright and screenwriter, Radichkov, whose works have been translated into more than thirty languages, is the most important and celebrated Bulgarian writer of the second half of the 20th century. He has been compared on many occasions to Gógol, Kafka and Gabriel García Márquez. His literary career began in 1959 with the collection of stories The heart beats for people, and quickly distanced himself from socialist realism; Radichkov begins to integrate elements of national folklore into his stories, as well as ironic or grotesque interpretations of the surrounding reality. His heroes, who remain oblivious to any form of ideology, claim instead an epic of the everyday. All this is evident in works such as Fierce Humor (1965), Aquarius (1967), Goat's Beard (1967) and Gunpowder Alphabet (1969). The latter is the first Bulgarian novel to approach the socialist revolution in a non-simplistic and ideologically biased way; reality, fantasy and popular wisdom are intermingled with elements of a mythical past. Radichkov was awarded many prizes, including the Dimitrov Prize for Literature, precisely for Gunpowder Alphabet, the Prize of the International Academy of Arts in Paris, the Order of Stara Planina, the Grinzane Cavour Prize, the Swedish Order of the Polar Star and the Hans Christian Andersen Prize, for one of his children's works (Little Frog Stories). In 2001 he was a candidate for the Nobel Prize.