Feeling. Expiry Date

For over ten years I lived with the vague idea to write a book where I'd reveal a female viewpoint of the emotional culture of relationships in the 70-ies and 80-ies of the past century. To really get down to writing, though, I was put on my mettles by two lines overheard on one and the same gloomy winter day. In the morning, I was invited to the discussion of the Law on Patronage. There, the director of one of the capital city theatres expressed his disapproval of such a normative deed in saying literally the following. "Well, you know it's good to have patrons but who'll tell them what to spend money on? 'Cos, you know, this pretty young actress could go up to the patron and he'd give her money for who knows what!" - in other word, it went without saying that a patron could only be a heterosexual male by definition. In the evening I found myself at a discussion of a thesis where the chancellor of a higher education institute, standing before about a hundred ladies, mainly university teachers, turned to one of the Sofia University deans and exclaimed: "Pesho, Pesho, just look at all the beautiful women we've got here, but they need men like me and you to guide them!" (No comment, as they say!) That is why I turned stubborn and wrote this little book. I dare hope that other middle-aged Bulgarian women will see themselves reflected in it, too.