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Maria S. Topalova

    A young writer from a small country like Bulgaria or Greece, whose languages ​​are spoken mainly by their own citizens and which often find themselves in some kind of economic and social crises, has achieved international acclaim and is selling hundreds of thousands of copies in an age when people worldwide are reading less. No, this is not the new fantastic satire by Ludmila Filipova. This is the impression that she has left during the presentation of the Greek edition of her first novel, "Anatomy of illusions", "Ανατομία των ψευδαισθήσεων", publisher ΨΥΧΟΓΙΟΣ, 2012, translated by Panos Spatoyiannis. The recently very popular bookshop Free Thinking Zone on 64 Skoufa Street in the central Athens district of Kolonaki hosted the presentation.
    "This was my first novel, I wrote it in 2006 and it shows that I am still learning to write," admits the author. Her work has been translated into several languages ​​and clearly shows Ludmila’s potential as an excellent storyteller. Over the following six years, she published six more novels, including "Glass Butterflies" 2008, "The Parchment Maze" 2009, "The Typo" 2012. The genres range from satire, fiction, historical thriller to poetry and love story. As Ludmila Filipova herself states, there is a love affair in all her books and it is like the ribbon that sells the story.
    The reader can find a piece of Ludmila in the women in her books. In the redheaded enchantress Anna from "Anatomy of illusions", who spent her childhood in the luxury house of her grandfather, Prime Minister of Bulgaria during the communist regime. (Ludmila Filipova is a descendant of the red nomenclature and her granddaughter Grisha Filipov was Prime Minister of Bulgaria in the period 1981-1986). In the beautiful blonde archaeologist Vera (in addition to the purely physical resemblance, Ludmila examines the topics in detail, with the pedantry of a scholar and historian). In the women in "Glass Butterflies" (as she admits for Eva magazine, she had also tried to conceive through in vitro fertilization). "I do not write biographies, I write novels," says the writer, arguing that any similarities are coincidental.
     It was her grandfather who had made Ludmila give up the financially secure daily routine of a business lady (she graduated from the University of National and World Economy and began her career in real business) and embark on the adventures of professional writer. "When my grandfather gave me his diaries my first thought was to publish a documentary book. However, very few people read documentary books. So, I decided to write a novel," she recalls. "Anatomy of illusions" has been reprinted several times and is still a bestseller in Bulgaria six years after its first release.
    The talented writer does not hide her ambitions in the field of cinema. In fact, last year, National Geographic TV channel shot a film based on the novel "The Parchment Maze". "There are only three books filmed by National Geographic and mine is one of them," says Ludmila with pride and not without reason.

    She is currently working on three major film projects that will be large-scale co-productions of several countries. Perhaps, they will be the largest-scale films that have ever been shot in Bulgaria.
    And, of course, she is writing her next book which, this time, will be about the creation of the Bulgarian language and the Cyrillic alphabet. How does she choose the themes? "I try to say something new every time. Some of my books are almost encyclopaedias. I devote a lot of time to research. I have been advised to focus on just one genre like Dan Brown and George Grisham. I know that this is the right business strategy, but my style is different in each book," says Ludmila Filipova.
    During her first visit to Athens as a writer (as a business lady, Ludmila worked in a company whose headquarters was in Athens and she often went on business trips to the Greek capital), she donated copies of her books to the Bulgarian school "Saint Paisius of Hilandar". She promised that she would return very soon to visit the school and read the children excerpts from her works.  Ludmila Filipova’s novels in Bulgarian and the Greek translation of "Ανατομία των ψευδαισθήσεων" can be found on the shelves of Free Thinking Zone. And for the readers of GRReporter, Ludmila Filipova wrote exclusively, "To GRReporter with gratitude and best wishes for success and loyal readers".

More information about Ludmila and her novels is available on her personal website: http://ludmilafilipova.com/ And if you want to indulge in the intellectual charm of Free Thinking Zone, just visit: http://freethinkingzone.gr/?p=24

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