Stork Mountain - Softcover

"A page-turning adventure story and a nuanced meditation on the meaning of home. This is a fantastic book."--Molly Antopol, author of The UnAmericans

"[A] sprawling, wildly ambitious novel . . . Thoughtful and thought-provoking, with a passionate faith in the redemptive powers of art."--The Boston Globe

"An agile and assured debut . . . In each of these stylistically old-school yet freshly envisioned morality tales, Penkov burnishes brute circumstances to surprising beauty."--Elle

"An intelligently mapped plot complements the skillful blend of familial relationships with religious commentary, and elements of the hamlets' folklore and rituals lend an added mystery . . . . This is a historically rich study of borders: those imposed by cartography and those that are self-constructed."--Financial Times (London)

"Penkov's stories combine toughness, vulnerability, and bravado . . . This is a sparkling collection."--Catherine Taylor, The Guardian

"A tremendous achievement from one of the best young international writers."--Yiyun Li, author of Kinder Than Solitude and Gold Boy, Emerald Girl

Longlisted for the Center for Fiction First Novel Prize

In Stork Mountain, a young Bulgarian immigrant returns to the country of his birth in search of his grandfather, who suddenly and unexpectedly broke contact with the family three years earlier. The trail leads him to a village on the border with Turkey, a stone’s throw away from Greece, high up in the Strandja Mountains---a place of pagan mysteries and black storks nesting in giant oaks; a place where men and women, possessed by Christian saints, dance barefoot across live coals in search of rebirth. Here in the mountains, he gets drawn by his grandfather into a maze of half-truths. And here, he falls in love with an unobtainable Muslim girl. The past will surrender its shameful secrets, as old ghosts come back to life and forgotten conflicts blaze anew.