Colibri Publishers

Colibri Publishing House was established in 1990. It is among the first private publishing houses that originated after the transformations and is still in action. Over the years Colibri Publishing House has gained positions as one of the highly professional and leading book-publishing establishments famous beyond the borders of this country as the only representative of many foreign publishers. The high quality of the texts and translations released by Colibri and the exquisitely fine books' get-up are well received in this country and abroad. According to book-sellers' data Colibri has invariably been among the first in book-marketing and its label has won very high prestige. Every year Colibri releases about 90 new titles and scores of second printings of older editions.

The catalogue of Colibri publishing company includes more than 900 titles among which the most famous names in world modern literature. It is thanks to Colibri that the Bulgarian readers have had the chance of getting familiar with lots of famous and less popular authors from different countries and continents, representatives of different genres, epochs, ideas, with authors that we need to know in order to be in tune with the world literary trends.

Colibri has got a considerably rich portfolio – a collection of authors that every publishing house of world prestige would take pride in. It includes such names as Isabel ALLENDE, Pedro ALMODOVAR, George AMADO, Roland BARTHES, Frederic BEIGBEDER, Simone de BEAUVOIR, Bernard WERBER, Graham GREENE, Philip JEAN, Francoise DOLTO, Wim WENDERS, Marguerite DURAS, Laura ESQUIVEL, Kazuo ISHIGURO, Italo CALVINO, Truman CAPOTE, Harlan COBEN, J. M. COETZEE, Milan KUNDERA, Dean KOONTZ, Le CLEZIO, Stieg LARSSON, Jorge Luis BORGES, Ian McEWAN, Eduardo MENDOZA, Haruki MURAKAMI, Amelie NOTHOMB, Paul AUSTER, Milorad PAVI?, James PATTERSON, Philip ROTH, Salman RUSHDIE, John STEINBECK, Irvine WELSH, Lyudmila ULITSKAYA, P. G. WODEHOUSE, Virginia WOOLF, Helen FIELDING, Thomas HARRIS, Siri HUSTVEDT and others. Good literature has gained a privileged place in Colibri's work. Colibri offers excellent samples of the literatures of smaller countries and even regions as well as translations from rare languages. Great attention is also paid to the Bulgarian authors among whom Rossitsa TASHEVA, Svetlana DICHEVA, Vassil KINOV, Elena ALEXIEVA (award for modern Bulgarian prose, "HELICON", 2006), and Angel WAGENSTEIN (the Sorbonne "Alberto Benveniste" Prize, the "Jean Monnet" Prize for modern European prose, 2004). Colibri has also published the books of Ivan ILCHEV, a famous historian, Rector of Sofia University, the works of the first democratically elected president of Bulgaria, Dr. Zhelyu ZHELEV and of the first Bulgarian commissar to European Parliament Meglena KUNEVA.

Here are some of the most prestigious and most popular collections of the Colibri publishers: "Contemporary European Fiction", "Modern Classics", "Amarcord", a series of popular psychology, documentary books and books on history, children's books released in co-production with leading publishers of Europe. Because of the keen interest shown by our readers and the numerous questions they keep asking a series of books for teenagers was recently released. So were science fiction and fantasy novels. Besides fiction Colibri also publishes documentary, reference books and books on humanitarian sciences, on psychology and human health, etc. In order to be in unison with the new tendencies dictated by the advance of Internet the Colibri catalogue also includes some blog-keepers such as the Bulgarian Ivaylo BORISOV, the Slovak Maxim E. MATKIN and the American Justine HARPER.

Besides, Colibri is leader in the sphere of foreign language learning: French, Spanish and Italian; it is specialized in publishing of textbooks and printed school matter for pupils and university students as well as for the individual learning of foreign languages and for those attending foreign language courses. Colibri offers a full range of bi-lingual dictionaries: English, German, Russian, Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese, Greek, Turkish various in size and volume. Taking part in the teams of authors are some of the best professors, translators, lecturers, editors of foreign language texts, members of the foreign language departments at Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski", Veliko Turnovo University "St. St. Cyril and Methodius", etc. Dictionaries and textbooks released by Colibri are to be found in the bookshops of France, Spain, Italy, Germany and Great Britain.

The activity of the publishing house is supplemented by the import from France, Spain, Italy and other European countries of textbooks, manuals, special literature and fiction in foreign languages. Colibri is the biggest company in Bulgaria to import original language systems in French, Spanish and Italian, some of which have passed with flying colours through the procedures at the Ministry of Education and have been approved throughout Bulgaria.

The Colibri editions can be found in all the prestigious book-shops and book markets in this country, the publishers own two book-shops in Sofia and two wholesale showrooms. Besides, Colibri is a regular participant in book-fairs and other initiatives in Sofia and in the country at large as well as abroad. The publishing house organizes local premieres and presentations of all its Bulgarian authors and a number of other events as well devoted to worth attention books. On the invitation of Colibri meetings of a number of foreign authors have been held with their Bulgarian readers. Among them were Nancy HUSTON, Jean-Claude CARRIERE, Jorge VOLPI, Andrei KONCHALOVSKY, David LYNCH, Andrei MAKINE, Bernard WERBER, Alicia Gimenez BARTLETT, Wim WENDERS, Marie DARRIEUSECQ, Juli ZEH, Inka PAREI, Wladimir KAMINER, Laurent GOUNELLE, Rosa MONTERO, Frederic BEIGBEDER, Katherine PANCOL, Goce SMILEVSKI, Volker SCHLONDORFF. Colibri Publishing House has got numerous awards and nominations among which the annual "Bronze Lion" award of the Bulgarian Publishers' Association for the best project and books (twice). In the current year Colibri is celebrating 20 years of existence. We would like to thank all our authors, contributors, readers and friends whom we have covered this long path with.