Distraught over the sudden disappearance of his wife Stella, Zack tries to drown his grief in Tijuana, where he encounters a violent scene, and trying to save a stranger's life, he nearly loses his own. He manages to escape in his assailants’ van and makes it back to the US, only to find a bag of marijuana in it. Using this as an impetus to change his life, Zack sets off for New York with the weed and a vintage Nikon. Through the lens of the old camera, he starts rediscovering himself by photographing an America we rarely see. His journey unleashes a series of erratic, hilarious, and life-threatening events interspersed with flashbacks to his relationship with Stella and life in Eastern Europe at the end of the 1980s. A suspenseful, darkly funny love story, 18% Gray won both the Bulgarian Novel of the Year Award and the Flower of the Readers Award when it was first published in 2008.
Author
Zachary Karabashliev is a novelist, playwright and a screenwriter. His debut novel "18% Gray" was published in 2008, became a bestselling title in Bulgaria, and was later published in the United States, France, Poland, Slovakia, Serbia, Croatia, and other countries. It won the prestigious Novel of the Year Award in Bulgaria, and was filmed in 2020 as an international co-production. His novel "Havra" (meaning something like Heath or Wastelands) came out in 2017 and was awarded the two most prestigious national literary Awards - Novel of the Year 2017, and H.G. Danov. His short stories included in the collections "A Brief History of the Airplane" and "Symmetry" have been translated and published in many languages. His "Metastasis" was published in the collection Best European Short Stories by Dalkey Archive Press in 2018. His stage plays have been produced on stage in Bulgaria and US (La Mamma Theatre, New York, 2014, Chicago 2020) winning numerous prestigious awards. His latest novel "The Tail" was published 2021, a stage play based on the novel, directed by Javor Gardev was produced at Dramatic Theatre "Ivan Radoev", Pleven. Zachary Karabashliev is the Editor-in-chief of the publishing house Ciela. He lives in Sofia with his family.
