The Tribe of Mothers
Once I was traveling with my baby in a tram. There were two men, a man and a woman, who could be briefly described with the cliché "beaten by life". Not very old, but with missing teeth, both with traces of attractiveness, but hardly noticeable. The man was carrying a plastic bag with half a loaf of bread and 2-3 small paper-bags - probably their lunch. As I watched them for several stops, the man suddenly noticed the baby. In just a few seconds, he was able to unwrap the one paper-bag containing some kind of sausage, pull out a knife, cut half of the sausage, and before our eyes wide open - mine and the baby's, a piece of the inferior sausage appeared... I was ready to cry - and then with my peripheral sight, I noticed the reaction of the people in the tram. Everyone was looking at him with contempt, even with indignation, others with condescension. What an idiot! I dedicated my book to this man in assurance that his gesture was not in vain.
Irina Karakhehayova
Irina Karakhehayova was born in Sofia in 1975. She is the author and artist of the books "The Tribe of Mothers" (2009), "The Food of the Tribe" (2010), "Home Ecology" (2011), "City as a City" (2013) in the series "Tribes" (ed. Format. bg). She graduated in Scenography and Painting from New Bulgarian University, Sofia. The theme of her doctoral dissertation is "The Interaction between Verbal and Visual in the Contemporary English Graphic Novel."
