Miroslav Penkov is a Bulgarian writer who writes in English and Bulgarian.[1] He was born in Gabrovo in Bulgaria in 1982, lived in Sofia for fourteen years and in 2001, at the age of 18, moved to the United States of America.[2] He studied for a bachelor's degree in psychology and an M.F.A. in creative writing at the University of Arkansas.[2] He teaches creative writing at the University of North Texas, where he is a fiction editor for the American Literary Review.[1]
His stories have been translated in over a dozen languages and have appeared in A Public Space, Granta, One Story, The Southern Review, The Sunday Times, The Best American Short Stories 2008 (edited by Salman Rushdie),[2] The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2012 and The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2013.
In 2007, his short story "Buying Lenin" won The Southern Review's Eudora Welty Prize in Fiction.[1][3]
In 2012, his story "East of the West" won the BBC International Short Story Award.[2][4][5]
In 2014, Penkov was selected as a protégé by mentor Michael Ondaatje as part of the Rolex Mentor and Protégé Arts Initiative, an international philanthropic programme that pairs masters in their disciplines with emerging talents for a year of one-to-one creative exchange.[6]