Zachary Karabashliev is a novelist, playwright, and a screenwriter. His debut novel, 18% Gray, is a bestselling title in Bulgaria and was published in the United States, France, Poland, Croatia, and other countries. It won the prestigious Novel of the Year Award in Bulgaria and was chosen by anonymous vote to be among the 100 most loved books by Bulgarians in the BBC campaign “The Big Read.” His short stories included in the collections A Brief History of the Airplane and Symmetry have been translated and published in many languages and made into short films. His stage plays were produced and have won numerous prestigious awards: Sunday Evening, Askeer; Recoil, The Audience Award in Wiesbaden Theatre Biennial, Germany “New Plays from Europe”; and his play Lissabon was staged at the legendary La MaMa Theatre in New York City in April 2014. Zachary Karabashliev is now the Editor-in-chief of the Bulgarian publishing house Ciela. He lives in Sofia. His upcoming novel, Freedom, is scheduled for publication in 2017.