![]() ![]() “A Picture with Yuki” demonstrates the strangeness of the immigrant experience as deftly as stories by Ha Jin, as a young man and his wife return from Chicago to participate in an in vitro fertilization program in the capital of Sofia. ![]() In “The Letter,” a thieving young minx plays a British transplant for an easy grand, then blows the cash on a spa day instead of her friend’s abortion. In all the stories, Penkov so fully occupies his narrators that one can almost hear their voices. “Buying Lenin” also presents a romance of sorts, between a grandson enraptured by America and the Stalinist grandfather who teases him. “East of the West” is a Forrest Gump–like romance 30 years in the making between a young man with a busted beak and the lovely cousin for whom he pines. ![]() The opener, “Makedonija,” sets the bittersweet scene, depicting a disgruntled old man nursing a grudge against the fellow who wrote letters to his wife 60 years earlier. ![]() This debut collection from Penkov spotlights the best of the young (he was born in 1982) writer’s output, much of which has been published in literary magazines. A gifted Bulgarian writer explores the history of his country in eight sharp, heartfelt stories about home. ![]()
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