The Gardener and Death « brought » the flower of Helicon « by Georgi Gospodinov

The famous writer Georgi Gospodinov is also honored with the Helicon Flower Award for his book The Gardener and Death, the book chain said. The nonsense prize is awarded to the best-selling book among the 12 nominees for the Helicon Award, which is given a new Bulgarian art prose.

« The two awards rarely go to one hands, because the taste of readers does not always coincide with the opinion of the jury. However, in this case for the fourth time in the history of the awards, this happens, » Helicon noted.

This was the first time this happened in 2005. Then Victor Paskov took both honors with an « autopsy of a love ». Eight years later, Alec Popov received the acknowledgment of both the jury and the readers – the two awards were presented to him for « Sisters Palaveev in the storm of history. » Last year, Teodora Dimova also won both awards for my novel « I don’t know you. »

So far, the « flower of Helicon » for the best-selling book between the 12 nominations has been received by Viktor Paskov, Boyan Biolchev, Alec Popov, Zahari Karabashliev, Kalin Terziyski, Mikhail Veshim, Ivo Siromakhov, Nedyalko Slavova, Milen Ruskov.

At a ceremony in December 2024, Georgi Gospodinov was declared the winner of the Helicon Literary Prize for the Gardener and Death. The other nominated books were Zdravka Evtimova’s « Lunar stories », « Zahari Karabashliev’s Wound », « The waiting room » by Denitsa Ilcheva, « Anne » by Kamelia Panayotova, « Firelves behind the bars » by Mira Dobreva, « Out of the Range » on Sunday,  » Mikhail Stoyanov, « The Novel of a Woman Without Quality » by Ralitsa Nikolova, « Sunflower Children » by Christina Terziyska and « You, Similarity » by Radoslav Bimbalov.