On KERA, Jerome Weeks reports on Miroslav Penkov, a University of North Texas professor and writer whose debut stories have been well received. Penkov’s own story contains some unexpected international twists. English is not his native language, and he says becoming a writer in Bulgaria was considered impossible, so he moved to America. That move has played a epart in defining the writer’s fiction, which blends his experiences of America with a distinctively eastern European sensibility:
In East of the West, Penkov’s stories range from low-key, lyrical realism to the out-and-out mythic and dream-like. The author he’s most often happily compared to is Gary Shteyngart (Super Sad True Love Story). But Shteyngart has a more antic and vaudevillian spirit. As brilliant as he is, Shteyngart can betray a need to keep the reader entertained at all costs — it leaks through like flop sweat. In contrast, Penkov’s humor is often laced with a gentle melancholy, a sense of loss. He has that characteristic Eastern European fatalism that can flip between nostalgic acceptance and hilarious absurdism.
