Description

New updated edition 2021 of the bestselling "I'm still counting the days" by Georgi Berdarov - winner of the first Bulgarian writing reality show "The Manuscript" and author of "Absolvo te" (winner of the European Prize for Literature 2021!) and "About the fifth brandy and how nice life is".

To research the history, I visited Sarajevo last year. I talked to people who lived through the blockade, people who knew my heroes, I walked in their footsteps as they fled across the Vrbanja Bridge. It was only there that I got a clear picture of what they had been through. And how the Sarajevo blockade has no parallel in human history in the dimensions of its cruelty and tragedy. It was the longest blockade of a city - 1395 days in which people could not leave the city. Every minute and second of it they were targets in a firing range.

One of my characters says, "In a war you can only be a target or a killer and you have no choice." But my novel is exactly about choice. It's about the fact that no matter what conditions you're put in, you can keep your humanity. And that's the divine part of us. My main characters, Davor and Aida, make a choice. They choose love and freedom over resignation, fear, and dehumanization.

When I was writing the novel, from November 2014 to April 2015, it so happened that I had nowhere to write. I actually wrote the novel in a café near the University, Timeless, where the staff and the atmosphere made me feel at home. I drank tea in the morning, whisky in the evening, and wrote. There were magical moments when, after two or three hours of writing, I was so immersed in the story that I forgot where I was.

My novel ends with my protagonist's mother saying, "I'm still counting the days," the days until she will meet her daughter again. I dedicate my novel to all those who are still counting the days, no matter which conflict and no matter where in the world they are.

I am absolutely convinced that we are not born white or black, European or African, Christian or Muslim. We are born first and foremost human, and whatever our circumstances, it is up to us to remain human.