Lyubomir Levchev (1935 – 2019) born in Troyan, Bulgaria, and is regarded as one of the great poets of Eastern Europe with international renown. 

He has a long and distinguished history of commitment and service to literature and culture. He served as Chairman of the Bulgarian Writers’ Union (1979-1988), First Deputy Secretary of Culture of Bulgaria, and Editor-in-Chief of the literary weekly of the Bulgarian Writers’ Union, Literaturen Front. 

He is a member of the European Academy of Science, Art, and Culture, and the European Academy of Poetry. His many international awards include: the Gold Medal for Poetry of the French Academy and the honorary title of ‘Knight of Poetry’ from the French Government (1985); the Medal of the Venezuela Writers’ Association (1985); the Máté Zalka and Boris Polevoy awards, Russia (1986); the Grand Prize of the Alexander Pushkin Institute and the Sorbonne (1989); the Fernando Rielo World Prize for Mystical Poetry (1993); the Golden Wreath of the Struga Poetry Evenings, Macedonia (2010); the Bulgarian State Award Order of the Balkan Mountains 1st Class (2006). 

Levchev is the founder and editor of the International Literary Magazine Orpheus. He has over thirty poetry books and three novels published in Bulgarian. The latest two among those are the autobiographical novel Lament of the Dead Time (2011) and the collection of selected and new poems 77 Poems (2012). Over 58 of his books have been translated and published in 36 countries worldwide.