"Moving to America, suddenly I felt so removed from everyone I cared about, and writing was the only way I knew to cross the ocean, to shorten the distance," he said. Although he had been writing in Bulgarian, it took some convincing from one of his professors for him to continue in English. Penkov moved from Bulgaria to America in 2001, at the age of 18, to study at the University of Arkansas. It's a very sprawling story, in which I tried to show myself how to take life's losses and not view them as punishments but as something liberating, and ultimately leading to freedom." "I used this as the basis for the story, but I wanted to inject my own life into it, myself, abroad in America and in many ways alone, with a huge body of water between me and the people I love. Every five years they would hold a reunion allowed by both governments, because 70 years ago they were one village – part of Bulgaria," said Penkov. "Years ago I read a newspaper article about two villages, one in Bulgaria, one over the border in Serbia.
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