The edition with awarded stories from the tenth literary competition of “Alef” is entering the Bulgarian schools
For another year the Ministry of education and science is directing the attention of teachers and students towards a literary collection, awarded in the International literary student competition “Whoever saves one human life saves the whole universe”, organized by Center for Jewish – Bulgarian cooperation “Alef”. The sixth edition of the collection named “Stories of darkness and light” will be a school aid in the conduction of “Class of dignity” – one of the initiatives dedicated to 10th of March – Day of salvation of the bulgarian Jews during the World War II. The regional directorates of education in the country have already spread the directions of the Ministry of Education to the schools, which already recommends the collection as a valuable guide for learning the history of the Holocaust, written by students for students.
“Stories of darkness and light” contains 22 pieces of talented young writers, awarded in the tenth edition of the competition – 18 by authors from Bulgaria and 4 by authors from Austria, Poland, Romania, and Israel. Written by young people, interpreting in a specific way one of the key and controversial periods of the history, the stories are a unique supplement for studying and rationalization of the events and the human qualities, manifesting in extreme circumstances. The book is a remarkable collection of stories, summarizing human characters and tragedies and are talentedly recreating episodes about the moral riot of the ordinary man against the cruelty of the Holocaust – an intriguing reading, provoking deep thoughts of how the world is changing. This is what makes the book so useful for the work of the history and literature teachers.
The tenth edition of the competition was finalized in the summer of 2023. 170 young authors from 9 different countries took part in it. Like every year, Center “Alef” collected the awarded stories in a book edition – sixth in a row, available in a digital version on the website of the Association http://alef-bg.org/.
The collection is recommended also as a christomathy for self learning of the students in the future literary competitions. Now in progress is the eleventh edition of the competition which marks a record number of contestants. Over 280 young authors from Bulgaria, Israel, Germany, Romania, Austria, Hungary, Ukraine, Slovakia, Poland, Spain, France and Latvia. The deadline for sending the stories expires in April and the organizers are expecting a larger number of competitors. The winners will be broadcasted at an official ceremony on 1st of June 2024 in Burgas, and the awarded stories will once again be included in a literary collection. Traditionally 30 authors from Bulgaria and abroad nominated by the jury will be invited, at the expense of the organizers, to take part in the Youth literary festival “Friendship – meaning and salvation” which will take place in Burgas from 31 May to 2 June 2024.
Every year the Ministry of education includes the competition “Whoever saves one human life, saves the whole universe” in the National calendar for the statement of interests of children and students. This is a recognition for its importance as a forum of youth creativity, through which we can find not only young literary talents, but also people with a clearly expressed civic position and a vision of the world in which they want to live.