The executioner removed his mask.
The condemned removed the sack from his head.
Both had identical faces.
Then one said to the other:
This is strange, but
it doesn’t change things.
It’s not even important.
Now the question is
how to kill
the eternal five minutes.

-Kristin Dimitrova,
translated from the Bulgarian
by Katerina Stoykova-Klemer
The Season of Delicate Hunger
(Accents Publishing 2014)

Kristin Dimitrova was born on May 19th, 1963 in Sofia. She is the author of 10 books of poetry, most recently The Garden of Expectations and the Opposite Door (2012), as well as a novel, two short story collections and a set of four travelogues. Kristin is also a co-scriptwriter of the feature film The Goat (2009). She has received five national awards for poetry, three for fiction and one for the translation of a selection of poems by English poet John Donne. Her poems, short stories and essays have been translated into 24 languages and published in 26 countries. She lives and works in Sofia.