“Asylum for Men and Dogs” by Zdravka Evtimova: The dignity of defiance5 min read
“I have everything, everything – if one is foolish enough to imagine that everything can be found in a bank.”
This painful insight captures the world of Asylum for Men and Dogs, 2022 („Зелените очи на вятъра“, 2018), Zdravka Evtimova’s novel about power, poverty, violence and the price people pay when they decide to preserve their dignity. Behind its unusual title lies a story about people placed in extreme circumstances who remain capable of resisting humiliation.
Asylum for Men and Dogs does not offer a comforting or orderly picture of life. Its world is harsh, unjust and filled with violence. The characters live in poverty and insecurity, surrounded by people who use money, physical strength or social status to dominate others. Yet the novel is not simply a story about the victims of this reality. At its centre are those who refuse to surrender despite everything.
A world seen through a child’s еyes
One of the main characters is a young girl named Ana. Through her perspective, the reader enters a world in which childhood offers no protection from the cruelty of adults. The child’s point of view does not make events appear less severe. On the contrary, it makes them even more disturbing. Ana does not always have the words or experience necessary to understand everything happening around her. She sees the actions of adults and senses fear and danger, but she must discover the rules of a world without reliable moral guidance on her own.
This childlike perspective allows Zdravka Evtimova to combine cruelty with innocence which is what makes this book so compelling. Terrifying things can sometimes appear almost magical, while extraordinary events are accepted as part of everyday life. People and situations acquire immense, almost mythological proportions. Bodies, voices, wounds and fears are exaggerated, but this exaggeration does not make them less real. Alongside that, the book shows how violence can pass from one person to another and from one generation to the next. Violence appears not only in the form of physical assault, but also as humiliation, poverty, indifference and permanent fear. Evtimova illustrates what violence looks like to a child – a force that fills the entire world.
Violence as an inheritance
In Asylum for Men and Dogs, evil rarely appears without a cause. Cruel people also carry wounds of their own. This does not excuse their actions, but it makes them more complex. Evtimova shows how humiliation can produce further humiliation and how a victim may sometimes become an abuser. Violence moves through families and communities like an inherited disease.
The novel does not divide its characters neatly into those who are entirely good and those who are entirely evil. One person may be brutal but still capable of love. Another may appear generous while actually exploiting the vulnerable. A third may be afraid and nevertheless find the strength to protect someone.
Evtimova’s message is not that good always triumphs. Rather, goodness must constantly prove that it can continue to exist. Evtimova has explained that, in her view, human beings can become greater than evil, but only when they confront it and demonstrate through their actions that they are stronger. Otherwise, evil will defeat them.
Two titles, two ways of reading the novel
Evtimova translated the book herself and rather than using the literal and highly poetic title The Green Eyes of the Wind (Зелените очи на вятъра), she opted for Asylum for Men and Dogs, a more direct title that immediately brings forward the novel’s concern with vulnerable people and animals.
The Bulgarian and English titles highlight different aspects of the novel. The Green Eyes of the Wind is poetic and symbolic. The title comes from the novel’s imagery and suggests forces that cannot be seen directly but can still be felt, such as fear, violence, memory and hope. For this reason, the Bulgarian title creates a mysterious, almost fairy-tale atmosphere and reflects the novel’s figurative language.
The English title, Asylum for Men and Dogs, is more direct and concrete. It focuses on the novel’s vulnerable characters and on their need for safety. The word “asylum” suggests a refuge for those who have been wounded, rejected or abandoned. The reference to both men and dogs also underlines one of the novel’s central contrasts: animals are often shown as loyal and incapable of the hypocrisy and cruelty displayed by human beings. Therefore the English title draws attention to the shared vulnerability of people and animals and to their search for shelter.
A novel about defiance
As of 2026, the novel has been published in three languages: Bulgarian- Зелените очи на вятъра, 2018, English – Asylum for Men and Dogs, 2022 and Italian – Gli occhi verdi del vento, 2026. Anyone seeking to understand Bulgaria should read the novel because it reveals realities that are difficult to capture through political analysis, historical summaries or tourist descriptions. Its Bulgaria is divided between villages, industrial towns and the capital, but the differences are not merely geographical. They represent contrasting experiences of wealth, opportunity, humiliation and power. The novel shows how social inequality enters private life: it shapes families, relationships, ambitions and even the ways people understand love and success.
Yet the book should not be read as a documentary portrait of all Bulgarians. Evtimova uses grotesque exaggeration, symbolism and dark humour rather than conventional realism. Through this distorted literary mirror, the reader encounters the legacy of economic insecurity, the tension between the centre and the periphery, distrust of the powerful and the importance attached to personal dignity. The novel communicates not only what poverty looks like, but how it feels to live in a society where money can determine who is heard, respected or protected.
For a foreign reader, this combination of hardship, black humour, tenderness and stubborn defiance offers a richer understanding of Bulgaria than any collection of national stereotypes. The novel presents a country marked by inequality and violence, but also by people who continue to love, protect others and stand upright when submission would be easier.
This is why The Green Eyes of the Wind is more than a novel about violence. It is a book about resisting violence. It does not promise that goodness will necessarily be rewarded, but it insists that the struggle for goodness has meaning. In Zdravka Evtimova’s world, a person may be poor, frightened and wounded, but as long as they retain the ability to love and to say “no,” they have not yet been defeated.
