RADICHKOV, Yordan Dimitrov 1929-2004

OBITUARY NOTICE—

See index for CA sketch: Born October 6, 1929, in Kalimanitsa, Mikhaylovgrad, Bulgaria; died January 21, 2004. Journalist, editor, and author. Radichkov was an award-winning fiction writer and filmmaker whose magical realism style offered thinly veiled social, political, and environmental commentary that at one point led to his arrest by government officials. In his early career, Radichkov worked as a newspaper editor for Narodna Mladezh from 1951 to 1952, and as a journalist for Young Communist from 1952 to 1955, and Vecherni Novini from 1955 to 1959. His books began being published in the mid-1950s, and he quit journalism in 1959 to become a full-time writer. Known for pushing the rules of literature, his tales often bordered on the grotesque and absurdist. Initially, audiences in Bulgaria were somewhat stymied by his fiction, until the magical realism works of Gabriel Garcia Marquez reached the country and readers began to understand what Radichkov was trying to do. Radichkov wrote not only short stories and novels, but also children's books, plays, and films. It was his controversial 1968 movie, Privérzaniyat balon ("The Captive Balloon") that landed him in trouble with the authorities. He was briefly imprisoned, but his local fame and popularity, as well as the fact that he had been a member of the Communist Party, made it impossible for the government to get away with incarcerating him for long. A few years after this incident, in 1971, Radichkov worked for the government as a senior advisor on cultural heritage, and in 1991 he was elected to the Bulgarian Parliament as a member of the Bulgarian Socialist Party, though he quickly decided not to become an active politician and never participated in a parliamentary vote. Radichkov was a prolific author of over fifty books, dramas, and screenplays; his works in English translation are Hot Noon (1973) and Lazarus Treed (1987); his more recent books include Svirepo nastroenie (2000) and Izbrano (2000). Though he fell short of winning the Nobel prize for literature after being nominated in 2001, Radichkov received many other awards, including the Grinzane Cavour in 1984, the Polar Star award from Sweden in 1988, the International Academy of the Arts prize in 1993, and the Hans Christian Andersen award in 1996, the last of which for his 1994 children's story collection Malki zhabeshki istorii. He was also a founding member and president of the Bulgarian-Swedish Association of Friendship from 1984 to 1991.

OBITUARIES AND OTHER SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Courier-Mail (Brisbane, Australia), March 2, 2004, p. 20.

Guardian (London, England), January 31, 2004, p. 27.

Times (London, England), January 29, 2004, p. 48.