Yana Yazova

Yana Yazova was the pen name of Lyuba Todorova Gancheva (1912 - 1974), a Bulgarian intellectual and writer. Her name is also transcribed as Liuba Gantcheva.

She was born in Lom and received a Master's degree in Slavic philology from Sofia University in 1935. Gancheva also studied French philology at the Sorbonne. She published a historical drama The Last of the Pagans and a novel The Captain in 1940. From 1942 to 1943, she co-edited the children's magazine Blok with Nikola Balabanov, brother of Prof. Alexander Balabanov, her inventor and lover. Gancheva married another man in 1943. Later in life, she was pressured to write poetry promoting communism but she instead chose to become a recluse.