Stories from the 90s

Compiled and edited by Nevena Dishlieva-Krysteva. This anthology contains twenty-six personal tales of youthful adventures, ridiculous hairstyles, bootleg cassette tapes, mafia thugs, hitchhiking and guitar-playing, free falling, and hopes for a bright future. All this took place against the backdrop of political and social cataclysms during the most vertiginous decade in Bulgaria’s recent history. A chronicle of euphoria, aspirations, and painful collapse.

Stories from the '90s is the third and final book in the series of themed anthologies published by ICU, which also include My Brother's Suitcase and Fathers never go away.

"Even back then, I felt a smug satisfaction that as a generation with a double transition, we are enviable for having the opportunity to live out this dance between socialism and democracy. But now, though I know the process was unsuccessful, I am even more convinced that the ’90s were the most exciting time from the fall of the Iron Curtain until now."
Milena Deleva

"That’s how the '90s began-like waking up from anesthesia."
Nataliya Deleva

"I'm writing about the pain, the losses, the depth and the horizon we were robbed off, the feeling that we were euphoric and full of pathos when we should’ve been pragmatic and skeptical instead."
Katya Atanasova

"It so happened that the last time we were young was in the '90s. We went through all their misery. And through all their marvelous sense of freedom and community. Somewhere back then we had and lost wives and friends, meaning and hope. That's why I recall that decade by way of Salinger-with love and squalor."
Georgi Gospodinov