Karaslavov, Georgi

Born Jan. 12, 1904, in the village of Debyr, Plovdiv District. Bulgarian writer and public figure. Academician of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences (1961). Member of the Bulgarian Communist Party since 1924. People’s Cultural Worker (1963).

Karaslavov began publishing his works in 1919, contributing to the antifascist and proletarian press. His first collections of short stories—The Homeless Children (1926), The Reed-Pipe Cries (1927), and At Ones Post (1932)—and the novella Village Correspondent (1933) introduced the reader to Bulgarian rural life, filled with social struggle. His novels The Thorn Apple (1938; Russian translation, 1958) and The Daughter-in-law (1942) contained realistic pictures of the life of the Bulgarian countryside during the years of monarchal-fascist reaction. His cycle of novels Ordinary People (books 1–4, 1951–66) presents an epic picture of the life of the Bulgarian people from the time of World War I to the mid-1920’s.

Karaslavov is also the author of plays, novellas, and novels for young people; essays in literary criticism; and biographical essays on Bulgarian writers (the collection Intimates and Acquaintances: Reflections and Reminiscences, 1968). He received the Dimitrov Prize (1950 and 1959).