Publishing house Znatsi, the Burgas Social Centre and the Far-1946 community cultural centre invite readers to the launch of the first book by Burgas writer and painter Petar Kostadinov. The novella "Life After That" was published with money from Burgas municipality's Culture Fund.

The story tells how a man accepts life as it is and finds the strength to make it better. Kostadinov himself suffered a serious injury years ago — he broke a vertebra in his neck and has been paralysed ever since. "For a long time I wanted to write the story of a boy who has an accident like mine, and to describe his journey through hardship, pain and uncertainty as he finds a new way to carry on with his life — with all its joys, challenges and small victories," the author says.

The book is split into three parts. In the first, a young athlete watches his life fall apart and finds himself in a world he doesn't recognise. The second follows his fight to win back his independence through different stages of rehabilitation — using conventional medicine, but also unconventional methods in moments of weakness and despair. By the third part, the main character has grown wiser and looks at his life with a philosopher's eye — he has understood that meaning isn't measured by whether you can walk. He keeps moving forward despite the hardship, meets people who inspire him, and lives through love, fear and joy in his own way.

Petar Kostadinov was born on 15 May 1973 in Burgas. He finished the town's shipbuilding technical school, specialising in ship engines and ship systems and mechanisms. In 2012 he graduated from Prof. Dr Asen Zlatarov University in Burgas, in the faculty of social sciences, with a degree in social pedagogy, and in 2014 he completed a master's in pedagogy at the same university, specialising in social-pedagogical counselling.

He has painted since he was a child, working in watercolour, gouache, tempera and acrylic. His paintings feature biblical scenes such as "The Judgement of Solomon", "Cain Kills Abel" and "Adam and Eve", as well as the mythical figures Romulus and Remus, Sisyphus and Icarus. He has taken part in group exhibitions in Burgas, Plovdiv, Belgium and the Netherlands, through projects run by the National Centre for Social Rehabilitation and the Flemish Federation of People with Disabilities in Belgium. He has also held solo exhibitions at the Burgas gallery and at the hall of the Union of Bulgarian Artists. In 2007 Kostadinov illustrated "The Bound Angel", a poetry collection by people with disabilities published by Znatsi.