Alek Popov was born in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1966. He graduated from St. Constantine Cyril the Philosopher College for Ancient Languages and Cultures in Sofia and later received his master’s degree in Bulgarian Language and Literature from Sofia University. In 1997, he attended the English Language Institute at Wayne State University.
His first novel, Mission London (2001), has been widely acclaimed as “the funniest contemporary Bulgarian book” and has been translated and published into 16 languages with an English edition in the U.K. (Istros Books, 2014). Popov’s second novel, The Black Box (2007), has been translated into German, Serbian, Turkish, Polish, and Italian, and won the 2013 U.K. Contemporary Bulgarian Novel Contest of the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation. It was published in English by Peter Owen Publishers in 2015. His third novel,The Palaveevi Sisters (Ciela, 2013), made the Top 10 list of best-selling titles in Bulgaria and went on to win the 2013 Helicon Prize for New Bulgarian Literary Prose. Alek Popov has published six collections of short stories and has authored six plays, which have been widely acclaimed and broadcast on Bulgarian National Radio.
