Public Republic

by Valentin D. Ivanov Photo: European Southern Observatory: VLT Survey Telescope snaps wide-field view of NGC 253 “Astronomer,” Clive told the boy. “This is what my badge says.” The kid was startled. It is one thing to stare at the uniform of the man at the next table, and another to hear him talking to […]

The two short stories by Zdravka Evtimova: “She Understood” and “The Miracle Maker” (published in the anthology of short stories “Drastic Measures (Short Story Collection)” in the UK in January 2012) inspired the following critical notes on the works of the Bulgarian writer: Again, the idea is a study of where the human mind goes […]

Nikola Nikolov Translated by Jasmina Tacheva Edited by AnnMarie Rudin Photo: Kheel Center, Cornell University Teenese raised his hand sharply and shot the cockroach onto the clay ground with a careful motion of his left hand without losing sight of the sheet on which his right hand continued scribbling as if guided by a reason […]

Erin Chandler Photo: torbakhopper The boulevard of broken dreams is never quite as glamorous as the painting of a handsome James Dean in his long navy coat walking through a colorful puddle. He looks disgruntled but clean and healthy. The real boulevard of broken dreams isn’t so appealing. My friend Sean looks a little like […]

Zdravka Evtimova Photo: jenny downing We are all strong and difficult people in our family. My father drank, it was true, but he made the best cornel brandy in Southern Bulgaria, and Bulgarians, Jews, and Greeks alike gave their last pennies to buy Dad’s home brew for their sons’ weddings. My elder brother was the […]

Zdravka Evtimova Photo: 8363028@N08 Keith knew Hilda would understand. She always did. She was the perfect wife. He sat by the window and she knew she didn’t have to make the slightest noise. If he sat by the fireplace she knew she had to bring him coffee, he liked his coffee black and she remembered […]

Photo: piermario A novel is a mirror walking down a road. We die containing a richness of lovers and tribes, tastes we have swallowed, bodies we have plunged into and swum up as if rivers of wisdom, characters we have climbed into as if trees, fears we have hidden in as if caves.

Zdravka Evtimova Photo: notsogoodphotography Bertha had tried this joke so many times that she had got tired of it. She’d enter one of these large clean cafes on Louisa Boulevard, under the big chestnut trees that looked like old gossipy wives and she’d see a guy sitting at one of the neat tables. She’d choose […]

Zdravka Evtimova Photo: megyarsh Shon didn’t have enough money. All his friends had forgotten him. He couldn’t pay his sex tax and that meant that he could no longer be a man. He’d be processed into a stone, and he knew he’d be deaf and blind dust. Each particle of the dust he would turn […]

Shae Davidson Photo: nicholas_t/ “There was a river in Ohio that caught fire,” Gordon said as he poured sugar into his coffee. “Near Cleveland, I think. So many chemicals dumped in year after year—one day it just went.” Gordon was a reliable source for obscure information whether useful, disturbing, or just puzzling. His family had […]

By Petar Marchev Translation from Bulgarian:Asya Draganova Photo:dspender Petar Marchev’s “War and Peace” won second place in Public-Republic’s competition for prose. Kolyo is a road man. Kolyo is short – sighted. Kolyo loves kalvados*. Kolyo goes hunting wild pigs. But kills a man. The guy had a 6-year old son. When Kolyo walks past the […]

Jason F. McDaniel Photo: tourist_on_earth I want to be dead. I am not thinking about divorce or mothers crying to God as their sons are taken away or the two guys in my company who were killed driving down a thousand year old street. I am thinking about my life and all the life that […]

J. Terry Price is a Springfield, Tennessee based writer and photographer, with an MFA in writing from Spalding University in Louisville and is Program Director and a mentor in The Writer’s Loft creative writing program at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. His work has appeared in various journals. His short story Eminent Domain […]

Jason Williams Photo: Mike Licht, NotionsCapital.com In the plastic cup-holder between Paul and his wife, the cell phone shudders awake. Abby flips aside the church bulletin and plucks the phone from the center console. The glowing, smudged screen reflects in her glasses. “Says it’s Chris. From work?” God damn it, he thinks. Sunday morning. Eleven […]

By Kristina Petrova Saturday morning. There’s something that makes me love Saturday mornings and I could never figure out what it was until now. I would like you to start loving Saturday mornings as well. Nothing more. There are no asterisks at the end of the sentence, evilly referencing clauses in a tiny font. Saturday […]

An interview with the swedish writer Jonas Hassen Khemiri by Desislava Velichkova You were in Bulgaria just a year ago. Tell me about Sofia. Tell me your own opinion about the city! Unfortunately, I was in Sofia for too short a time to get to know it. Hopefully we will become friends next time. What […]

Dimiter Anguelov Photo: Anyaka For centuries in succession, this ferryman, lost in the crossing of the river, keeps trying to carry over my soul. It is not immortality that attracts him in that useless journey. His suffering kills me little by little. Exhausted, I shout at him in vain: “Wretched fellow, don’t you see that […]

Dimiter Angeulov Photo: stephcarter “On my way across the Parede City Park, I noticed a woman who had bent down too much, much more than amateur photography requires when shooting a goose. Her temporizing dragged on for so long that I lost patience and said: “Out of this will come … nothing will come out […]

Nancy Ross-Flanigan Photo: YXO The road we took to get to A’oloau was the same road we took to get to Tafuna or Leone or any of the other villages on the island’s west end. If we headed east from Utulei instead of west, that very same road would take us through Fagatogo and Pago […]

Whitney Groves Photo: erix! As she rode down the highway at sixty miles an hour, Darla had no trouble believing that she was riding on air. Every time she opened her eyes to check, she was a little surprised to find herself in the back seat of Donny’s Delta 88. Mostly, she kept her eyes […]