Bulgaria

This book has tons of great photos showing many aspects of Bulgarian culture and geography, which I grew to love through a few years spent there. I was thrilled when I found the book in the library and later when I purchased a copy. Regarding the cover: yeah, even my wife who is a Bulgarian Roma thought it was a little weird that they should put Gypsy kids on the front. But the Roma do form a substantial minority in Bulgaria, and the background apartment building is typical, regardless of the tenants' ethnicity. Read the negative reviews of this book with a grain of salt, for many of them are simply racist (which also happens to be a rather typical trait of some Bulgarians).

I have been very puzzled by the reader reviews of this book. I've read it and it is nothing like what some of the reviews say. There are four pages on Bulgarian minorities out of a 130 page book, and half a dozen pictures of minority individuals. I think it is probably just the cover that these reviewers object to. But they should know that authors of books like these rarely choose the pictures, and never the cover. The marketing department chooses a cover photo that they think will help sell the book. No doubt they had no idea that the cover would arouse anger and negative reviews, or they would not have chosen it. Since it's a book for kids, they probably saw it as just a cute picture of some smiling kids that would appeal to other kids.I imagine that at least some of the reviewers have never read the book. I hope they will do so and discover that the actual text of the book gives a positive portrayal of this wonderful country, certainly as positive as other books of this type on other countries. My impression is that it was written with a deep love for Bulgaria's culture and heritage. It is certainly worth reading, and then if a reader objects to the cover, they should write to the publisher and explain why it should be changed. Publishers want to please customers, and if they get several such letters, they are likely to respond.

The scope of this book is to provide the Western citizen--a potential visitor of Bulgaria--with historic, ethnographic, and sociologic information about the country. It is lavishly illustrated with color images that would move every Bulgarian's soul: it brings nostalgia to those Bulgarians who live abroad and visit the country rarely. Both images and text represent in a very balanced way the Bulgarian roots, folklor, customs, landscape, and ethnic diversity. Personally, I discovered the book by chance in 1998, in a public library in Montreal, Canada, when my little daughter had a school assignment to present her native country to her class mates. At the time I was happy to have found this book, which struck me with its moderate tone, truthfulness, and excellent illustrations. My daughter left Bulgaria at the age of four, and it was good that she could see information about Bulgaria I wasn't able to give her myself. I was further pleasantly suprised that the book was written by Ms. Stavreva, whom I knew as a respected professor of English at Sofia University and who had moved to the U.S. several years earlier.In an era of uncertainty and ethnic conflicts all around the world, such a book that offers restraint and objectivity is a rare achievement. Bulgaria is a poor country, struggling with a very burdensome communist past, and bragging about it would be unfair with regard to any reader who wants to make informed decisions about his or her travels. On the other hand, Bulgaria is as beautiful as Switzerland yet unable to offer tourists conditions matching contemporary standards. In my opinion, this is evident from the book. The publishers of the book have no ambition to tell the whole truth about the country, they simply want to present its exoticism, rich cultural heritage, and natural beauty. Bulgaria is interesting and may appear exotic to people who prefer unexplored lands, simple pleasures, and the company of humble people. Anyone who visits Bulgaria can find plenty of those.I thing that it is nonsense to qualify this book as "inciting hatred." Bulgarians are painfully sensitive to their image, to the extent that they are hypocritical with foreigners. This is understandable. However, they would never admit to a foreigner their overwhelming flaws, one of which is their cultural intolerance to ethnic minorities and foreigners. Quite the opposite, they would vehemently try to deviate the truth if it appears to misrperesent their "pure" made-up image. Yet, during the 13 years of post-communism they have done very little to improve this image so that it concurs with the civilized standards of Europe they allegedly aspire to join. I would agree that the picture on the cover is not the most representative for the country. But Bulgarians can hardly even imagine that for a Westerner reared in liberal traditions, the openly exhibited ethnic image--of happy young Gypsies, one should admit--can indeed be more appealing than a lustrous photomontage of the