Dimitar Talev

Dimitar Talev Petrov – Palislamov was born on September 1, 1898 in the Macedonian town of Prilep. He studied in Prilep, Thessaloniki, Skopje, Stara Zagora and Bitola. Later he studied medicine and philosophy in Zagreb and Vienna (1920-1921), graduated Slavic philology from Sofia University (1925). He was the managing editor of the Macedonia newspaper, and a contributor and editor in the Zora newspaper (1938-1944). In 1944 he was arrested with no official indictment, with no court decision or sentence. He was sent to the labor camps Bobov Dol (by the end of 1945). In October 1947 he was arrested again, and gravely ill he was sent to work in Pernik mines. His family was exiled from Sofia in Lukovit. Talev published his first novels yet as a student in the Skopje high school. In the first half of the 20s he published social novels and impressions, and later he turned to the Macedonian periodicals. His first big initiative was the trilogy Usilni Godini (Arduous Years) including V Drezgavinata na Utroto (In The Dusk of Morning), Podem (Revival), and Ilinden. It was his attempt to create an epic story about the preparation, bursting out and defeat of the Ilinden-Preobrajenie Uprising (1903). In the beginning of the 40s he wrote the novel Zhelezniyat Svetilnik (The Iron Candlestick). Later Talev wrote the next two parts of the not completed (following the author’s plan) novel compound work. The tetralogy Zhelezniyat Svetilnik (The Iron Candlestick), Prespanskite Kambani (The Bells of Prespa), Ilinden, and Glasovete Vi Chuvam (Your Voices I Hear), is the first and unique by envelopment in the Bulgarian literature story about the Ilinden-Preobrajenie Uprising. In the 50s Talev wrote the three-volume novel Samuil – telling about the end of the First Bulgarian State. The works of Talev are translated into over 20 languages. Dimitar Talev died on October 20, 1966.