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Three narrators, a novice in a monastery, a Catholic priest and the author himself, tell in parallel how a railway came to be built across the young principality in the late nineteenth century. The line, meant to join the capital to the sea, bind together a country only recently united and perhaps open a door to Russia, is nearly derailed by political intrigue, financial schemes and religious prejudice. Around it crowd ministers and courtiers, entrepreneurs, coal miners and navvies, Orthodox bishops and parish priests, merchants, sharecroppers and the poorest of the poor. Historical figures are drawn into plots of superstition, palace games, love, hatred, loyalty and betrayal, where fact and fiction meet and heroes and villains trade places. The railway becomes a symbol of renewal and prosperity, though symbols seldom live up to hopes.

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About the book

Form

Novel

Length

245 pages in the original

Genres

Historical, Politics (assigned by AI)

Set in

Bulgaria, late 19th century

First published

2012 by Zahariy Stoyanov

ISBN

9789540906898 (original)