The Mythic Delirium crew proudly lifts the veil on the official cover art for Haralambi Markov’s debut short story collection, The Language of Knives.

It’s challenging to express how thrilled we are to share this stunning work by Bulgarian artist Diana Naneva, based on a concept from the author. That haunting stare will regard readers across the globe when The Language of Knives: Stories goes live worldwide on July 7, 2026.

And needless to say, we’re incredibly proud to be the ones shepherding this book into existence.

We have a thing for books that meld folklore, mythology, genre tropes, and contemporary themes in offbeat, beautiful, mind-bendingly creative ways (consider our collections from C. S. E. Cooney, Theodora Goss, Barbara Krasnoff, and Yukimi Ogawa as prime examples) and Haralambi Markov’s stories embody that criteria. They wowed us as we first read his manuscript. Ann VanderMeer, in her introduction, struck an additional nerve when she noted how Harry’s stories resonate with Clive Barker’s Books of Blood, which we’ve been fans of since we were teens; thus, this collection leans further toward horror than we’ve gone before, but still provides that mythic delirium we crave.

If you have an Edelweiss membership, you can download an EPUB ARC of The Language of Knives for review. Click here to get one.

If you want a copy, you do not need to wait to reserve one: The Language of Knives is available for pre-order in trade paperback and e-book on every possible platform. (The paperback has not appeared in every possible avenue yet, but it will continue to populate over the next few weeks, so keep checking back if it’s not yet available at your online store of choice.)

You can also pre-order the e-book directly from our website, and if you live in the U.S., the paperback.

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Pre-order The Language of Knives

Stories by Haralambi Markov

Trade Paperback: Barnes & Noble | Amazon | Amazon UK | Amazon CA | Amazon AU | Books-a-Million | Bookshop

Ebook: Amazon | Amazon UK | Amazon CA | Amazon FR | Amazon DE
Amazon AU | Nook | iBooks | Kobo | Google Play | Smashwords | Weightless

or pre-order direct from our website

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We have print ARCs too! (You can feast your eyes on the stack in the picture to the right.) If you’re a reviewer and you’d like to have one of these, contact me at mythicdelirium at gmail dot com and make your pitch.

What’s coming next? Well, we’ve got a group reading in the works that will be graciously hosted by Claire Cooney and Carlos Hernandez this upcoming Sunday, February 22nd, from 2:30-4:30 PM EST on Twitch! More details will come very soon, but the lineup for this online reading includes Harry, myself, Christa Carmen, Sarah Hans, Nicholas Kaufmann, Cassandra Khaw, S. P. Miskowski, and Jeffrey Thomas.

It’s going to be spectacular. You definitely don’t want to miss it.

It’s always dangerous to declare plans when not all the details are set in stone yet, but our aim is to have copies of The Language of Knives available for sale in person at Readercon in Boston in July, and at Necronomicon in Providence, R.I., in August. We look forward (if all goes according to plan) to catching up with old friends and making new ones.

About The Language of Knives

A murderous nine-headed monster from legend permits a podcast interview. The mall has opened its doors, and nothing, not even certain death, will keep the shoppers away. A dead man’s curse drives his descendants to drown themselves, no matter how far from home they flee. An eerie haunted house attraction receives an even more unnerving guest. A grieving widower, knife in hand, undertakes a painstaking, gruesome ritual to appease the gods. If seeking a boon from Baba Yaga sounds nerve-shattering, imagine having to live under her roof.

These thirteen tales in this debut collection from Bulgarian author Haralambi Markov meld Slavic mythology, pitch-black humor, and moving explorations of queer identity with vistas rooted in body horror and nightmares, yielding results that are sometimes deeply disquieting, sometimes surprisingly hopeful, and always strikingly novel. As Hugo and World Fantasy award-winning editor Ann VanderMeer states in her introduction, Markov “writes with such power and intensity that you can’t imagine where they get the courage to put such words on paper. Their work challenges us to face our fears, our insecurities, and not look away.”

Courtesy Plamena Ilcheva

Haralambi Markov is a Bulgarian fiction writer and editor with a background in content creation. They were the first ever Bulgarian to be accepted to attend the Clarion Writers’ Workshop in 2014. Their short story “The Language of Knives” was long-listed for the Nebula award for Best Short Story and their essay “My Father, My Private Monster” made it onto the Stoker long list for non-fiction in 2025. Their work has appeared in Reactor, Uncanny Magazine, Evil in Technicolor, Weird Fiction Review, Stories for Chip, Eurasian Monsters and Fractured Reveries. They were part of the team of BonFIYAH 2021. Follow them on Instagram at @somethinghaunted.

Courtesy Diyana Naneva

 
Diyana Naneva, a.k.a. Functional Neighbour, is a freelance illustrator from Varna, Bulgaria with a particular affinity for comics. During her high school years, she specialized in Graphic Arts under the guidance of Borislav Kuzmanov and later continued with Painting at the National Academy of Arts. At the same time, she gained experience in her greatest passion—illustration.

Her exhibitions and participations have been showcased across Bulgaria and Europe, and her illustrations have graced the covers of numerous books and publications, including Lost Boy by Don Handfield, Alice on a Friday Night by Dessi Nikko, the anniversary edition of Yan Bibiyan by Elin Pelin (published by Artline Studios), Redhead in the Forest of Ghosts by Zlatko Enev (published by Iztok-Zapad).

A mockup of the full wraparound cover.