The book is a gem and for a number of reasons. The poetry in the first instance - in Bulgarian and facing English! The Kyrillic script- how I wish I could read it -In beautiful and stark relief, it almost stands upon the paper and moves me in the same way as our old Gaelic script or Gothic German .The whole ensemble constitutes a work of impressive art. Serpendity strikes again -the poems in the language that I cannot understand or read, nevertheless in translation evokes some emotional turmoil as all good poetry should.

The works of these Bulgarian-born poets perfectly complement each other in this beautiful volume. They explore the anomalies of life in exile: the need for solitude competing with the longing to belong, freedom and responsibility exercising their different pulls, the desire for adventure vying with homesickness. Rumiana Ebert's spare distilled portraits of childhood in Communist Bulgaria balance Tzveta Sofronieva's fluid questioning of the modern world.