Konstantin Iliev

Playwright, novelist, translator. Born on October 16, 1937 in Gorno Pavlikeni (Bulgaria). Graduated German Philology at Sofia's University St. Kliment of Ohrid. Specializes Theatre Studies at the Humboldt University in Berlin, where he defends his Doctorate Dissertation on the plays of Friedrich Duerrenmatt. He worked as a dramaturge in Blagoevgrad's Theatre Nikola Vaptsarov and the Drama Theatre Sofia. From 1995 until 2007 he is Head Dramaturge at Bulgaria's National Theatre Ivan Vazov.

Plays (in the order in which they were written): Longing For Colours (1961), Without You In October (1968), The Mousy King (1968, a puppet play), Music From Shatrovets (1971), The Window (1977), Basil For Draginko (1978), Easter Wine (1979), Nirvana (1982), Odysseus Travels To Ithaca (1984), Red Wine For Goodbye (1989), Lame-Leg or Lupine Holy Mother (1994), Francesca (1999), Beethoven21 (2006).

Prose: French Donkey (1988) — a novel, The Defeat. A Chronicle From The Short Century (2003) — an autobiographical book, The Memory of the Raven. Texts on theatre, drama and politics (2005).

He translates from the German (Brecht, Buechner). Plays of his have been produced in Austria, England, Estonia, Macedonia, Poland, Russia, Slovakia and elsewhere.

Konstantin Iliev has received a number of state drama awards, the international Herder Prize of 1996 for overall achievement, the Helikon 2003 award for new Bulgarian prose writing and the Elias Canetti Literary Prize 2005.

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