Alek Popov was born in Sofia, Bulgaria in 1966. He graduated from St. Constantine Ciril Philosopher College for Ancient Languages and Cultures in Sofia and later received his Masters of Arts degree in Bulgarian Language and Literature from the University of Sofia. Alek published his first collection of short stories The Other Death in 1992. Through the years he has contributed to numerous publications and has produced six collections of short stories. His first novel Mission: London, based on colourful impressions from being the Cultural Attaché at the Bulgarian Embassy in the United Kingdom, was published in 2001. It has been widely acclaimed as “the funniest contemporary Bulgarian book” for its sarcastic projection of the Bulgarian diplomatic elite. He has won several literary awards including the National Radio's Pavel Veshinov Award for the best criminal short story; the Graviton Award for best science fiction; the Raško Sugarev Award for best short story; the prize Helicon for best prose book of the year, 2002; the annual prize of Clouds magazine for the English translation of Mission London, 2004; and most recently the National Prize for Drama Ivan Radoev. Alek’s short stories have been have been translated into German, Hungarian, Polish, Serbian, Chez, French, Danish, English and Turkish. His novel Mission London was published in Serbian from Geopoetica publishing house and in Hungarian from Kijarat Kiado. It is currently prepared for print in France. Today Alek is one of the most popular young writers in Bulgaria with a broad range of creative interests. He continues to focus on prose, but also authors screenplays and facilitates various creative workshops. (from Alek Popov's website, URL: http://www.alekpopov.net/index.html)