Our portfolio
For decades, Colibri Publishing House has been building its catalog diligently and responsibly, out of respect for a discerning and demanding readership. Sooner or later, this spirit of creation, consistency, and dedication pays off: today Colibri is an indispensable factor and a standard of professionalism in the industry. The publishing house's catalog features the names of dozens of renowned creators whose Bulgarian editions are entirely or mostly thanks to Colibri: John Steinbeck, Truman Capote, Jorge Luis Borges, Italo Calvino, Bohumil Hrabal, Simone de Beauvoir, Magda Szabó, W. G. Sebald, Milan Kundera, Paul Auster, Philip Roth, Ian McEwan, Salman Rushdie, and others.
The Colibri logo is associated with some of the most illustrious names in contemporary world literature, representing various styles, genres, cultural, and ideological trends. Each of these writers is a laureate of prestigious national and international awards and appears in the publishing house’s catalog with specially selected works: Lawrence Durrell, John Fowles, Mario Vargas Llosa, Isabel Allende, Richard Powers, Ted Chiang, Haruki Murakami, Liu Cixin, Richard Flanagan, Irvin D. Yalom, Lyudmila Ulitskaya, David Grossman, Guadalupe Nettel, Mieko Kawakami, and others.
Authors and series
Among the most distinguished series of Colibri is the collection “Contemporary European Prose”, which has become a benchmark for high-quality fiction. A subdivision of it is the series with the logo “Europe”, which highlights relatively young and talented European authors with a clear understanding that the great capital of European literary art lies in its long-standing traditions. The storylines vary widely: from the increasingly relevant ecological theme through original interpretations on the topic of “otherness” to the eternal problem of gender equality. The genre diversity ranges from novels and short stories to borderline, hybrid literary forms and experimental works. It is enough to mention names like Javier Marías, Dubravka Ugrešić, Eduardo Mendoza, António Lobo Antunes, Elena Ferrante, Jonas Jonasson, Jonathan Littell, Emmanuel Carrère, Irene Vallejo, Joël Dicker, Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, Margaret Mazzantini, Amélie Nothomb, Daniel Kehlmann, Hervé Le Tellier, Pierre Lemaitre, David Foenkinos, Paolo Giordano, Herman Koch, Frédéric Beigbeder, Delphine de Vigan, and others.
The newly created “Pearl Series” encompasses authors and works with classic status. It presents some of the most remarkable creators of the last century, exemplars of modern classics, as well as titles highlighted in the Colibri catalog that have enjoyed significant reader success. The quality of the series is due both to the high expertise of translators, editors, proofreaders, and designers, and to the insightful design approach, thanks to which the impact of these editions is even more tangible. The stylish minimalist cover design is the work of Ivo Rafailov, and the illustrations on page 5 of each edition are by the world-renowned artist and animator Theodor Ushev. The series includes titles by Vladimir Nabokov, José Saramago, Günter Grass, Stefan Zweig, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Françoise Sagan, Julio Cortázar, Boris Pasternak, Karen Blixen, Boris Vian, Somerset Maugham, Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Thomas Mann, Eugène Ionesco, Yasunari Kawabata, and others. The portfolio of classic authors at Colibri also includes landmark representatives of modern and world classics such as Marcel Proust, Virginia Woolf, Henry James, A. P. Chekhov, Ivan Bunin, Octavio Paz, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Oscar Wilde, Rudyard Kipling, Émile Zola, and others. Over the years, selected works by Charles Dickens, George Eliot, Gustave Flaubert, Ivan Turgenev, and others have been published and republished repeatedly.
Poetry and Cinema
In the publisher's catalog are some of the most prominent representatives of refined poetic literature from Dante Alighieri to the present day, including William Shakespeare, Charles Baudelaire, Pierre de Ronsard, Konstantinos P. Kavafis, Pablo Neruda, Paul Éluard, France Prešeren, Jacques Prévert, Federico García Lorca, Rainer Maria Rilke, Louis Aragon, and others. The poetic translations, done by some of the most skilled Bulgarian poets and translators, bring readers closer to the semantic and aesthetic heights of the original editions of these masterpieces, while the elegant authorial design turns the editions into unique works.
The series of autobiographies "Amarcord" is among the publisher's hallmarks. It covers confessions of the greatest artists in the field of film art, including directors, screenwriters, actors, and cinematic visionaries of the caliber of Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, Luis Buñuel, Andrei Tarkovsky, Andrzej Wajda, Jiří Menzel, Bernardo Bertolucci, Michelangelo Antonioni, Franco Zeffirelli, Jean-Claude Carrière, Georgiy Daneliya, Werner Herzog, Wim Wenders, Volker Schlöndorff, Jean-Jacques Annaud, David Lynch, Pedro Almodóvar, Woody Allen, Roman Polanski, Oliver Stone.
Bulgarian writers
In addition to publishing books by classic Bulgarian writers such as Ivan Vazov, Georgi Stamatov, Konstantin Konstantinov, Svetoslav Minkov, Anzhel Vagenshtain, "Colibri" traditionally gives a platform to established contemporary authors and new literary voices whose works stand out with their artistic qualities, interesting linguistic and stylistic inventions: Georgi Tenev, Dimitar Shumnaliev, Albert Benbasat, Maria Kelbert, Radoslav Parushev, Katerina Hapsali, Maria Kasimova, and others.
Philosophy and Psychology
The collection of scholarly works and essays covers giants in the fields of philosophy, psychology, cultural studies, and sociology, including Hannah Arendt, Jacques Lacan, José Ortega y Gasset, and Umberto Eco. Here are gathered the works of Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, as well as readings from Françoise Dolto, Melanie Klein, Irvin Yalom, and other important figures who shaped modern psychoanalysis. The books contain numerous examples from clinical practice, a solid glossary, and many charts and diagrams.
Publisher's catalog
Of exceptional interest is the dedicated series for crime literature and thrillers (Robert Galbraith, Douglas Kennedy, Camilla Läckberg, John le Carré, Peter May, Viveca Sten, Harlan Coben, Ingvar Jönsson, and others), the collection of science fiction exemplars (Ted Chiang, Liu Cixin, Sequoia Nagamatsu, Stanisław Lem, Joe Abercrombie, etc.), the series for self-knowledge "Spirituality and Self-Improvement" (Laurent Gounelle, Frédéric Lenoir, etc.), and carefully selected readings to help parents (Steve Biddulph, Claire Stride, Dr. Fitzhugh Dodson, Glenn Doman, etc.). For young readers are richly illustrated encyclopedias, collections of classic and contemporary tales, fun books about the adventures of Little Nicholas, Alice in Wonderland, The Wizard of Oz, and other legendary characters.
Due to the strong reader interest over the years, sections for health literature, travelogues, culinary arts, and others have also been established. Over the years, the publisher's catalog has included selected works by William Faulkner, James Joyce, Edgar Allan Poe, Kurt Vonnegut, Jorge Amado, Graham Greene, Milorad Pavić, P.G. Wodehouse, Thomas Pynchon, Jonathan Franzen, Anne Tyler, V.S. Naipaul, Lydia Davis, Hwang Sok-yong, Luigi Pirandello, Dino Buzzati, Mircea Eliade, J.M. Coetzee, Henry Miller, Evelyn Waugh, Isaac Babel, Horacio Quiroga, David Herbert Lawrence, Hermann Hesse, Aldous Huxley, John Banville, Siri Hustvedt, and many other distinguished authors.
Our guests over the years
The publishing house has always aimed to promote intellect, functional intelligence, curiosity, and critical thinking — both through the literature it offers and by organizing events featuring influential artists from various parts of Europe and the world. "Colibri" has dozens of completed projects that include innovative educational panels, professional debates, and creative discussions. Unforgettable remain the public literary premieres and autograph sessions with foreign authors and guests who have achieved international fame and recognition.
By invitation of "Colibri" since 1990, the local audience has met: Mario Vargas Llosa, Dubravka Ugrešić, Ian McEwan, A. B. Yehoshua, Nancy Huston, Jean-Claude Carrière, Jorge Volpi, Krzysztof Zanussi, Andrey Makin, Bernard Werber, Alicia Jiménez Bartlett, Wim Wenders, Marie Dariosek, Juli Zeh, Andrey Konchalovsky, David Lynch, Inka Paraj, Vladimir Kaminer, Laurent Gounelle, Rosa Montero, Frédéric Beigbeder, Pavel Huelle, Catherine Pancol, Goce Smilevski, Volker Schlöndorff, Laura Esquivel, Paolo Giordano, Kun Peters, Antonia Kerr, Miriam Seeger, José Carlos Somoza, Kim Monzó, Kim Thúy, Vicente Botín, Jun Jan and John Haliday, Dan Lungu, Mihailo Pantić, Ahmed Yümit, Sylvie Vartan, Herman Koch, Vladislava Voinovich, Alison Shiefer, Katarina Masetti, Johan Theorin, Frédéric Saldmann, Laurence Plazanet, Lidia Dimkovska, David Foenkinos, Lucia Giovannini, Guillermo Martínez, Ivan Mikloš, Margaret Mazzantini, Sergio Castellitto, Douglas Kennedy, Clara Sanchez, Erez Aharoni, Piotr Paziński, Kristfried Tögel, Jens Christian Grøndal, Claire Tomalin, Marie-France Hirigoyen, Joël Dicker, Arnon Grünberg, Catherine Bernstein, Jiří Menzel, Luis Basat, Meir Shalev, Alfonso Agilo, Esmahan Aykol, Vicens Villatoro, Selja Ahava, Tanya Stupar-Trifunović, Nedim Gürsel, Steven Gross, Gonzalo M. Tavares, Sally Green, Ted Kochev, Elizabeth Kostova, David Grossman, Miloš Urban, Gaël Jos, Cédric Villani, Harris Vlachianos, Vincent Vinel, Xavier Bosch, Haldóra Torodsen, David Lagercrantz, Dejan Tiago-Stanković, Jamal Ouariashi, Yanis Palavos, Prof. Bernard Okuturier, Andrea di Robilant, Dror Mishani, Eshkol Nevo, Tatiana Tsubulyak, Marti Gironell, Eric Naulleau, Hervé Le Tellier, Marion Eser, Claudiu M. Florian, Amanda Sthers, Olivier Bourdeaut, Paolo Genovese, Laura Vinogradova, Jean-Christophe Rufin, Federico Pedreira, Jacopo de Michelis, Daniel Gattarich, Mike Downie, Anette Bierfelt, Dacia Maraini, Christine Leunens, Ilya Leonard Pfeifer, Jente Posthuma, Carmen Posadas, Anne Enright, Natalie Skowronek, Emi Abrahamson, Daniel Kelman, Jonas Karlsson, Giulia Caminito, Camille Laurens, Frédéric Lenoir.
Recently published books
Bulgartabac
The Enlightened Army
Balkan Ritual
Bulgarian Roses
Before Your Memory Fades
The Music of Chance (new edition)
The Decameron
Trudovak
The Strength of the Few
The Master of Puzzles
Howl
The House of the Spirits (new edition)
Justice for Sale
The Passengers on the Hankyu Line
A Farewell to Arms
2666
Tea for the Ghosts
The Little Panda Made a World
A Personal Anthology
