FRENCH DONKEY
A Novel
A Bulgarian student working during the holiday season as a guide at the Black Sea falls in love with a German girl from East Berlin. During their short-lived love a small donkey gains the affection of the two. As a joke Ingrid tells Dimcho that she would like to have such a sweet creature as a pet at home. Minutes before the plane with the German tourists is about to take off back to Germany he makes her a promise to make her such a gift. It turns out that his feelings of love are much stronger than usual casual summer fling. In the mountain village where he goes to buy a donkey so as to keep his word however, he meets another young girl. He takes a job as a part-time teacher in the local school and remains there during the winter. The newly sprung love is once again asymmetrical. This time it is the girl with the stronger feelings. At the end of the winter, when things revolve in a full circle and the fading image of one person is overtaken by the full and living presence of the other, it is too late. What has taken place is that eternally repeating itself by the words of Heine ancient story, when the girl, just in spite, marries the first man she meets. The character in the novel envisions himself alone in the village with a donkey that he bought and never sent.
- The book was published by the Publishing House Hristo G. Danov, Plovdiv, 1989,
ISBN 07/9536272422/5605-372-89
and by the Publishing House Zhanet – 45, Plovdiv, 2007
ISBN 978 954 491 326 7 - Awarded at the National Competition For A Novel On A Contemporary Subject, 1989
