Neika Krasteva presented her new book, The Sentence, in the Hotel Anel

On 10.06. In 2019, at the Hotel Anel, the premiere of Neika Krasteva's new book - The Sentence, was presented by: Milena Dimitrova - Editor, Iliana Malinova Yotova - Vice President of the Republic of Bulgaria and Andrei, who is one of the main characters in the book. 

Neika Krasteva is a famous Bulgarian journalist, born in Sofia. She has worked as a reporter, editor and special correspondent in some of the biggest newspapers in Bulgaria at the time, such as: Evening News, Domestic Front, 168 Hours, Standard. She was the editor-in-chief of the weekly Politika and currently directs the English-language edition of Europost. He is the author of dozens of journalistic investigations, interviews and commentary on current topics, as well as the documentary Lifelong Corridor on the fate of women with breast cancer. Sentence is her first solo book. Kalin Nikolov designed the design and cover of the book.

Like the author Neika Krasteva, so do I yearn for the revenge for cynical schemes to be stolen from terminally ill people. In despair, they gild shamans, charlatans, and calculating doctors. Fury breaks in our breasts and against health factors that prevent patients from waiting for transplants or finishing their days in unequal battles with the pharmaceutical industry and the brain-built stairways and sidewalks. However, this blind anger rages briefly and quickly settles down - when it is not personally affecting us…
In her book, Neika Krasteva hits several bells. The first is that we are vulnerable. Whatever we think of ourselves, we are all made of fragile material. Man is not given to know when his ephemeral happiness will break. He knows neither when, nor how, the film in which he plays and directs himself will end. Sam even chooses the scenery, sometimes the playwright is only Fate.

The second bell is against the impasse that cures us with incurable diseases. It turns out that for millennia, human civilizations have not subordinated their priorities, interests, and discovery efforts. They were distracted by wars, territorial claims, dynastic marriages, nationalism, intrigues and selfishness. They could instead focus on resisting scourges such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, dementia. Prior to The Verdict, Neka Krasteva had embarked on a film against breast cancer, and this film found audiences across Europe. We need sobering books! The benefit of literature like this book is as great as that of entire patient organizations, brave and uncorrupted. Months after I read the manuscript, there remain in my memory and still watch the pictures of how the trapped man resists, how his powers weaken, how his body transmits him, how he does not find allies and humanity from anywhere. But it is still struggling and there is no other choice!
Some Krasteva convinced Andrei and his relatives to talk, to speak their real names, to take us out of the comfort zone with delusions about health and health care. I find this to be her third merit. There is no yelling, no hypocrisy, no pretentious sympathy for suffering in the book. The verdict is frank, written with the right sense of a journalist who has in no way cheated on the public mission of his profession.
A strong, smart and young man falls into the maze. It is unpredictable and unknown why he was grabbed, not by any of us or you. The patient is late until he realizes. He wanders, he fights, he falls, he grows up ... He stiffens, he crashes again, he looks for a way out ... And that one percent hope that overcomes fear and powerlessness is in itself meaning and life.