Greetings from the Blue Tent
By Petya Kokudeva, Janet 45, 25.00 BGN
What happens when a children’s writer tells about her adventures around the world – from the far north of Scandinavia, Baltic countries and Russia, through Asia and New Zealand to Africa and the United States? The result is definitely not a typical travel book, but one that goes far beyond the borders of the genre.
In the beginning were Petya Kokudeva, her boyfriend Georgi Yanev, the old French lady (a 10 years old Renault Twingo) and a blue tent. Nine months and thousands of kilometres later, Petya started editing her travel diary and it began a new life as “Greetings from the Blue Tent” in 2019.
We know her as a journalist, a copywriter and an awarded author of children’s books, but it turns out that travel writing also fits her like a glove.
Petya’s point of view is different – she has found magic in each place and every meeting along the way. Her travel book is something between a collection of fairy tales for adults and parables that have gathered together the wisdom of the world.
Most of the 95 short stories included in the book are written in the blue tent on a small tablet with a tiny keyboard in the light of her head torch.
Petya Kokudeva’s stories don’t follow any chronological order. She constantly takes us back and forth – at one moment she is walking on a red Cambodian dusty road, the next she is running barefooted across an icy Icelandic river and wading into the nearby hot spring quick after that. Petya tells us about her meetings with gods and mortals, local superstitions and native customs, everything presented with vivid imagination, witty sense of humour and over 100 striking pictures.
