The Black Box

In 1991, two Bulgarian brothers, Ned and Angel, receive an unusual package from the USA; a black plastic box containing the ashes of their late father, Professor Emmanuel Banov. But are they really his ashes? How can the brothers be sure? And why would anyone want to fake their father's death? 15 years later, as the brothers forge new and very different lives (Ned a management consultant; Ango a dog walker to the rich) in their new home in New York, some answers begin to emerge . . . A darkly comic tale of disillusionment, The Black Box explores the nature and logic of neo-liberal capitalism and how so many of us are driven to acts of greed, imprudence, and recklessness in the pursuit of money and wealth.

"Prize-winning Bulgarian novelist Alek Popov has a uniquely scabrous view of Bulgarians abroad . . . In The Black Box, Popov devotes his comic energy to two Bulgarian brothers . . . [The] Black Box wrestles with the parochial view that there are two places in the world: Bulgaria, and everywhere else." —Richard Beard, contemporarybulgarianwriters.com

Alek Popov is the prize-winning author of widely translated collections of short stories, and his first novel, Mission London, has been published into fifteen languages and was adapted into a hugely successful film. He is also the author of The Palavei Sisters, and is part of the editorial body of Granta-Bulgaria magazine.