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.

[1] 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").

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").