Valeri Petrov

Valeri Petrov (Bulgarian: Валери Петров, pseudonym of Valeri Nisim Mevorah (Валери Нисим Меворах); 22 April 1920 – 27 August 2014), was a popular Bulgarian poet, screenplay writer, playwright and translator of paternal Jewish origin.

Born in the capital Sofia to lawyer Nisim Mevorah (and Bulgarian ambassador to the USA in 1945–47 and representative to the UN) and high-school French teacher Mariya Petrova, Valeri Petrov studied at the Italian School in the city, finishing in 1939. He graduated in medicine from Sofia University in 1944.

When he was 15, Petrov published his first independent book: the poem Ptitsi kam sever ("Birds Northwards"). In this and subsequent publications he used his non-Jewish mother's surname or other pseudonyms because of the pro-Nazi regime in Bulgaria at the time. He later wrote the poems Palechko ("Tom Thumb"), Na pat ("En route"), Juvenes dum sumus, Kray sinyoto more ("By the Blue Sea"), Tavanski spomen (A Reminiscence from an Attic) and the series Nezhnosti ("Endearments").

In 1978, Petrov wrote the children's musical Button for Sleep. He is particularly esteemed for the quality of his translation of the entire works of Shakespeare - the authoritative rendition of the Bard in Bulgarian.

In the autumn and winter of 1944, when Bulgaria switched sides and joined the Allies in the Second World War, Valeri Petrov worked first at Radio Sofia and then as a wartime writer with the newspaper Frontovak ("Front Fighter"). Following the war, he was among the founders of the humoristic newspaper Starshel ("The Hornet") and its assistant editor-in-chief (1945–1962). He served as a doctor in a military hospital and in the Rila Monastery.

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