Elisaveta Bagryana. The Ruler of Elements

Elisaveta Bagryana (16 April 1893 - 23 March 1991), born Elisaveta Lyubomirova Belcheva, was a Bulgarian poet who wrote her first verses while living with her family in Veliko Tarnovo in 1907-08. She, along with Dora Gabe (1886-1983), is considered one of the first ladies of Bulgarian women's literature". She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times.

Elisabet Belcheva-Bagryana taught in the village of Aftani, where she experienced rural life, from 1910 to 1911, after which she studied Slavic philology at Sofia University. Her first poems — Why ("Защо") and Night Song ("Вечерна песен") — were published in 1915 in the magazine Contemporary Thought (Съвременна мисъл). It was after World War I ended that she truly entered into the literary world, at a time when poetry was undergoing a transformation. By 1921, she was already active in the literary life, and was collaborating on the Newspaper of the Woman ("Вестник на жената") and the magazine Modernity ("Съвременник"), among other publications.

Elisaveta Bagryana passed her life surrounded by words, editing a number of magazines and writing. Her works have been translated into over 30 languages. Her poems are most recently available in a book entitled Penelope of the 21st Century: Selected poems of Elisaveta Bagryana, translated by Brenda Walker.

This book presents in details her biography as well as interesting and not sufficiently known facts of her life.