What do you think?
Rate this book
Белият затворник. Тайната история на Гълъбин Боевски
The Olympic weightlifting champion Galabin Boevski finds himself in Brazilian prison. He is caught with 9 kg of cocaine at the Sao Paulo airport, while returns to their home with his daughter Sarah, a 15 years old tennis player. There is no mercy for the legendary sportsman - the sentence is 9 years and 4 months.
Galabin is forced to sleep in a floor of the cell, because the prison room is overcrowded. He has enough time to bring back the time and to remember his rise and fall.
The Bulgarian was a hero, thanks to his Olympic title, Worlds and Europeans gold medals and amazing weightlifting records. He was the only man who dared to challenge the greatest lifter ever lived on the planet Naim Suleymanoglu.
Day after day The white prisoner starts to use his past experience to find a way to get out of the jail. How he manages to survive surrounded by murders, thieves, cheaters and drug dealers? Will he returns to his country? How his unforgettable Olympic experience will help him to keep his mind behind the bars?
...inspired by true story...
Check the facebook page of the book: https://www.facebook.com/galabin.boevsky
Twitter: https://twitter.com/galabinboevski
Author blog: http://ogigeorgiev.wordpress.com/
Galabin is forced to sleep in a floor of the cell, because the prison room is overcrowded. He has enough time to bring back the time and to remember his rise and fall.
The Bulgarian was a hero, thanks to his Olympic title, Worlds and Europeans gold medals and amazing weightlifting records. He was the only man who dared to challenge the greatest lifter ever lived on the planet Naim Suleymanoglu.
Day after day The white prisoner starts to use his past experience to find a way to get out of the jail. How he manages to survive surrounded by murders, thieves, cheaters and drug dealers? Will he returns to his country? How his unforgettable Olympic experience will help him to keep his mind behind the bars?
...inspired by true story...
Check the facebook page of the book: https://www.facebook.com/galabin.boevsky
Twitter: https://twitter.com/galabinboevski
Author blog: http://ogigeorgiev.wordpress.com/
- GenresBiography
152 pages, Paperback
First published December 21, 2013
2 people are currently reading
65 people want to read
About the author
Ognian Georgiev
1 book16 followersI am sport journalist, working for one of the most popular daily newspapers in my country "Bulgaria Today". Got a chance to cover last two summer Olympics in Beijing and in London.
My first book was inspired by the amazing story of legendary Bulgarian weightlifter Galabin Boevski, an Olympic, World and European champion. At the end of 2011 he was caught with 9 kg of cocaine at Sao Paulo airport. He was traveling back to his native country with his 15 years old daughter Sarah.
Boevski was sentenced for 9 years and 4 months. He stayed just two years in Brazilian prison and surprisingly one day he returned home...
The book's name is "The white prisoner - Galabin Boevski's secret story". The English edition released on 30 May 2014. Check here all the news around the book: https://www.facebook.com/galabin.boevsky
My personal blog:
http://ogigeorgiev.wordpress.com/
My first book was inspired by the amazing story of legendary Bulgarian weightlifter Galabin Boevski, an Olympic, World and European champion. At the end of 2011 he was caught with 9 kg of cocaine at Sao Paulo airport. He was traveling back to his native country with his 15 years old daughter Sarah.
Boevski was sentenced for 9 years and 4 months. He stayed just two years in Brazilian prison and surprisingly one day he returned home...
The book's name is "The white prisoner - Galabin Boevski's secret story". The English edition released on 30 May 2014. Check here all the news around the book: https://www.facebook.com/galabin.boevsky
My personal blog:
http://ogigeorgiev.wordpress.com/
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 3, 2014
This book is based on the true story of an Olympic weightlifting champion who not only suffers from the sports underworld of doping, but who also ends up in prison from smuggling cocaine- despite his apparent innocence.
I should point out that this isn't the type of book I would normally read- I'm not much of a sports fan, and certainly not weightlifting- I'm the skinny, bookish type! But I'm quite happy to give most genres a go, and seeing as the writer was kind enough to do an author interview with me, I decided to read The White Prisoner.
The structure of the book is expertly built, as it changes to different points in time, making it constantly engaging. And as an English translation, it's been very well adapted. My only big gripe was the narrative's mistakes of changing from past tense to present tense.
It was great that a lot of thought had been put into the English translation- with the numerous footnotes explaining Bulgarian food/politics/words etc. Indeed, it was this part of the book I enjoyed the most- not the footnotes per se, but to have a glimpse into Bulgarian life; as well as into the world of sport/weightlifting at a grass roots level.
It's an easily read book, and the author's 'journalistic-fiction' style fits perfectly, although personally I would have liked more descriptive and emotive content. All in all, I really enjoyed reading this book. From a subjective, how-much-I-enjoyed-it attitude, I would award it three stars. But for the market that this book is aimed at, I'm happy to give it an objective four stars!
I should point out that this isn't the type of book I would normally read- I'm not much of a sports fan, and certainly not weightlifting- I'm the skinny, bookish type! But I'm quite happy to give most genres a go, and seeing as the writer was kind enough to do an author interview with me, I decided to read The White Prisoner.
The structure of the book is expertly built, as it changes to different points in time, making it constantly engaging. And as an English translation, it's been very well adapted. My only big gripe was the narrative's mistakes of changing from past tense to present tense.
It was great that a lot of thought had been put into the English translation- with the numerous footnotes explaining Bulgarian food/politics/words etc. Indeed, it was this part of the book I enjoyed the most- not the footnotes per se, but to have a glimpse into Bulgarian life; as well as into the world of sport/weightlifting at a grass roots level.
It's an easily read book, and the author's 'journalistic-fiction' style fits perfectly, although personally I would have liked more descriptive and emotive content. All in all, I really enjoyed reading this book. From a subjective, how-much-I-enjoyed-it attitude, I would award it three stars. But for the market that this book is aimed at, I'm happy to give it an objective four stars!
October 22, 2024
It is a badly written, poorly edited, and confusing timeline biography of Galabin Boevski. Boevski won the Sydney Olympics weightlifting gold in the men's 69kg category after serving a 2 year drug ban. He later got banned for another 8 years. He was jailed in Brazil for smuggling 9kg of cocaine.
The book makes excuses for Boevski in every chapter.
Earlier this year, Boevski was jailed for trying to smuggle 1,000 kilos of cocaine into Portugal.
As a weightlifter, I thought this would be interesting. It wasn't.
The book makes excuses for Boevski in every chapter.
Earlier this year, Boevski was jailed for trying to smuggle 1,000 kilos of cocaine into Portugal.
As a weightlifter, I thought this would be interesting. It wasn't.
August 21, 2014
This review is taken from my website The Sports Book Review.
This intriguing insight into the often murky world of weightlifting focuses on the rise and fall of one of Bulgaria’s lifting superstars of the late 1990s/early 2000s; Galabin Boevski, a former world and Olympic champion. In a country where weightlifting is a seriously big draw with its top exponents feted as national heroes with a suitably high profile to match, Boevski rose to prominence and conquered the world. He also became Bulgaria’s sportsman of the year in 1999.
But this story doesn’t start there. It starts in a Sao Paulo prison with an incarcerated Boevski awaiting trial after being accused of smuggling cocaine. From there we look back over his life in the sport and out of it, moving from young football hopeful to the top of the weightlifting world and to a Brazilian prison cell. Quite the rise and fall.
Told by Bulgarian sports journalist Ognian Georgiev, a sports editor for the newspaper Bulgaria Today, the level of detail included is impressive, as one would expect from a journalist of course. Tracing Boevski’s rise to prominence through the lifting schools and academies of small town Knezha to the capital city Sofia, what comes across as clear as day is what a tough world that was to inhabit. The competition is fierce, as befitting the sport’s status in Bulgaria and the Balkan region, and the coaching regime is frequently brutal and intimadatory. Only the toughest will rise to the top and Boevski was certainly one of those.
As he reached international level, the thorny issue of drugs rears its head. Bulgarian weightlifting has been decimated by numerous high profile failed drugs tests culminating eventually in 2008 with the entire national team being withdrawn from the Olympics for failing pre-Games tests. They wouldn’t compete at world level again for five years. Boevski wasn’t involved at that time, he was himself already banned for having twice failed tests, but was part of the 2000 Olympic squad which was initially sent home after three failed tests before a late reinstatement on appeal. It’s fair to say that Bulgaria’s recent weightlifting past is controversial to say the least.
With that in mind, Boevski’s story shines a light on the practices of those years, where coaches gave lifters their “vitamins” regularly. Weightlifting is of course a sport where the extra stimulus of performance enhancing drugs can have a significant effect and the stench of its influence is never far from the surface. For instance, Boevski and a colleague were prevented from competing in a European event early in their careers for fear of failing a test.
As the level of competition increased, so did the intake of drugs and supplements. As Georgiev puts it: ‘The cup with the pills is getting fuller.’ Some are legal supplements of course, but also in there was the metabolic booster Orocetam; a banned substance within a supplement that the head coach applied huge pressure to his charges to take. The national federation was complicit in all of this, and also had a tidy sideline in selling athletes to other countries, notably Qatar, in order to compete for them. Murky in the extreme.
It is in these details that this book is at its most revelatory for the casual observer. It’s not so long ago that each Olympic Games would see a seemingly daily weightlifting drugs scandal hogging some headlines. It became so frequent that the watching world came to expect it and the sport was in disrepute. This book will at a dose of meat to the bones of those Olympic scandal memories, seen from the inside with the focus on one of that eras key protagonists.
To the weightlifting enthusiast, this book provides a fascinating look behind the scenes of a top level weightlifting career and gives a deep insight into a true star of the sport at that time. With that in mind Georgiev takes us back to the Sao Paulo prison throughout as that later narrative is intertwined with that of Boevski the competitor to build a sympathetic view of the eponymous athlete.
It does occasionally jump around a bit quickly, but that keeps the pace moving along nicely. The translation from Bulgarian could have been slicker too; some sentences at times reading slightly unnaturally in English. But in the overall knowledge and detail there is a lot on offer here; intriguing and insightful and for the sporting enthusiast, a little depressing on the drugs front, while equally fascinating with regards the personal story of an Olympic champion.
This intriguing insight into the often murky world of weightlifting focuses on the rise and fall of one of Bulgaria’s lifting superstars of the late 1990s/early 2000s; Galabin Boevski, a former world and Olympic champion. In a country where weightlifting is a seriously big draw with its top exponents feted as national heroes with a suitably high profile to match, Boevski rose to prominence and conquered the world. He also became Bulgaria’s sportsman of the year in 1999.
But this story doesn’t start there. It starts in a Sao Paulo prison with an incarcerated Boevski awaiting trial after being accused of smuggling cocaine. From there we look back over his life in the sport and out of it, moving from young football hopeful to the top of the weightlifting world and to a Brazilian prison cell. Quite the rise and fall.
Told by Bulgarian sports journalist Ognian Georgiev, a sports editor for the newspaper Bulgaria Today, the level of detail included is impressive, as one would expect from a journalist of course. Tracing Boevski’s rise to prominence through the lifting schools and academies of small town Knezha to the capital city Sofia, what comes across as clear as day is what a tough world that was to inhabit. The competition is fierce, as befitting the sport’s status in Bulgaria and the Balkan region, and the coaching regime is frequently brutal and intimadatory. Only the toughest will rise to the top and Boevski was certainly one of those.
As he reached international level, the thorny issue of drugs rears its head. Bulgarian weightlifting has been decimated by numerous high profile failed drugs tests culminating eventually in 2008 with the entire national team being withdrawn from the Olympics for failing pre-Games tests. They wouldn’t compete at world level again for five years. Boevski wasn’t involved at that time, he was himself already banned for having twice failed tests, but was part of the 2000 Olympic squad which was initially sent home after three failed tests before a late reinstatement on appeal. It’s fair to say that Bulgaria’s recent weightlifting past is controversial to say the least.
With that in mind, Boevski’s story shines a light on the practices of those years, where coaches gave lifters their “vitamins” regularly. Weightlifting is of course a sport where the extra stimulus of performance enhancing drugs can have a significant effect and the stench of its influence is never far from the surface. For instance, Boevski and a colleague were prevented from competing in a European event early in their careers for fear of failing a test.
As the level of competition increased, so did the intake of drugs and supplements. As Georgiev puts it: ‘The cup with the pills is getting fuller.’ Some are legal supplements of course, but also in there was the metabolic booster Orocetam; a banned substance within a supplement that the head coach applied huge pressure to his charges to take. The national federation was complicit in all of this, and also had a tidy sideline in selling athletes to other countries, notably Qatar, in order to compete for them. Murky in the extreme.
It is in these details that this book is at its most revelatory for the casual observer. It’s not so long ago that each Olympic Games would see a seemingly daily weightlifting drugs scandal hogging some headlines. It became so frequent that the watching world came to expect it and the sport was in disrepute. This book will at a dose of meat to the bones of those Olympic scandal memories, seen from the inside with the focus on one of that eras key protagonists.
To the weightlifting enthusiast, this book provides a fascinating look behind the scenes of a top level weightlifting career and gives a deep insight into a true star of the sport at that time. With that in mind Georgiev takes us back to the Sao Paulo prison throughout as that later narrative is intertwined with that of Boevski the competitor to build a sympathetic view of the eponymous athlete.
It does occasionally jump around a bit quickly, but that keeps the pace moving along nicely. The translation from Bulgarian could have been slicker too; some sentences at times reading slightly unnaturally in English. But in the overall knowledge and detail there is a lot on offer here; intriguing and insightful and for the sporting enthusiast, a little depressing on the drugs front, while equally fascinating with regards the personal story of an Olympic champion.
March 29, 2015
Galabin Boevski was a world class Bulgarian weightlifter, winning the gold medal in the 2000 summer Olympics as well as several world and European championships in his weight class. He had a dramatic fall when he was accused of doping and suspended for eight years and then was arrested by Brazilian police in 2011 for allegedly trafficking in cocaine. He was sentenced to a lengthy prison term but was released after two years.
For many years Bulgaria has been an international power in the sport of weightlifting, winning a number of championships far greater than one would expect based solely on the population. One of the oddest aspects of this is that there is no unique training method that the Bulgarians have perfected. In reading this book about one of their champions, it seems that they succeed more in spite of their training program rather than because of it.
Some of the champion lifters smoke cigarettes and don’t follow the kind of rigid training program that one ordinarily associates with world and Olympic champions. As is related in this book the Bulgarian sports authority for weightlifting is rife with brutal political battles that have to have negative consequences for the sport.
This book is a biography of Boevski with an emphasis on his entry into the sport of weightlifting, his experiences there, his time in a Brazilian prison and then his involvement in the sport after his release. In general it is not a pleasant story, while his triumphs are mentioned, most of the text deals with the problems between individuals and Boevski’s claim of innocence of any knowledge of the cocaine the police found in his suitcase.
His claims have some plausibility, for the cocaine was relatively easy to find and there was no reason for Boevski to take such a risk. He was a successful person and to attempt to smuggle drugs is to risk everything. Furthermore, the act of switching suitcases in an attempt to have someone unknowingly serve as a drug mule is not unheard of.
While this book is not a riveting read, it is an interesting look into the world of a relatively obscure sport as well as Bulgarian society in the decade after the fall of communism. It was an unsettled time in the country, and weightlifting is a sport where muscle-building drugs would have the most dramatic consequences. If you follow weightlifting or have an interest in how the societies of Eastern Europe evolved after the end of the rigid communist state then this is a book that will interest you.
This book was made available for free for review purposes and this review appears on Amazon.
For many years Bulgaria has been an international power in the sport of weightlifting, winning a number of championships far greater than one would expect based solely on the population. One of the oddest aspects of this is that there is no unique training method that the Bulgarians have perfected. In reading this book about one of their champions, it seems that they succeed more in spite of their training program rather than because of it.
Some of the champion lifters smoke cigarettes and don’t follow the kind of rigid training program that one ordinarily associates with world and Olympic champions. As is related in this book the Bulgarian sports authority for weightlifting is rife with brutal political battles that have to have negative consequences for the sport.
This book is a biography of Boevski with an emphasis on his entry into the sport of weightlifting, his experiences there, his time in a Brazilian prison and then his involvement in the sport after his release. In general it is not a pleasant story, while his triumphs are mentioned, most of the text deals with the problems between individuals and Boevski’s claim of innocence of any knowledge of the cocaine the police found in his suitcase.
His claims have some plausibility, for the cocaine was relatively easy to find and there was no reason for Boevski to take such a risk. He was a successful person and to attempt to smuggle drugs is to risk everything. Furthermore, the act of switching suitcases in an attempt to have someone unknowingly serve as a drug mule is not unheard of.
While this book is not a riveting read, it is an interesting look into the world of a relatively obscure sport as well as Bulgarian society in the decade after the fall of communism. It was an unsettled time in the country, and weightlifting is a sport where muscle-building drugs would have the most dramatic consequences. If you follow weightlifting or have an interest in how the societies of Eastern Europe evolved after the end of the rigid communist state then this is a book that will interest you.
This book was made available for free for review purposes and this review appears on Amazon.
September 8, 2014
Olympic Gold Medalist and 1999 Athlete of the Year, Galabin Boevski’s career was fraught with difficulties and trials from the very beginning. As a young boy growing up in Pleven, Bulgaria, Boevski’s dream was to become a professional football player. His small size, however, would prevent this dream from becoming a reality, and it was only by a chance encounter that the future champion was introduced to the sport of weightlifting.
The struggles continue throughout his training career and competitions, where the cut-throat politics and corrupt hierarchy in the sport lead to multiple accusations of doping that prevent him from competing against his well-matched (and well-sponsored) competitors.
But still Boevski manages to rise above the challenges, winning Athlete of the Year in 1999, as well as receiving the titles of World Champion and European Champion multiple times over. In the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, on an injured knee, Boevski wins the gold medal in the lightweight class.
In October 2011, Boevski was arrested at an airport in Sao Paulo, Brazil, after being caught with 9 kilos of cocaine in his suitcase. His career is forever marred by the unfortunate event, which he and his family vehemently insist as being a setup, and he serves several years in a special prison for foreigners in Itai before being released on ‘expulsao’.
The White Prisoner follows the tragic yet inspirational story of Bulgaria’s beloved weightlifting champion Galabin Boevski and his rise to fame. Author Ognian Georgiev offers a rare, insider’s view into the cut-throat sport of weightlifting, exposing the challenges that it’s competitors face on a daily basis, and the amount of fierce devotion and love of sport it takes to reach the top. Well written and engaging, this biography reads more like a fast-paced thriller and you will be hard-pressed to put it down once you begin reading. Though I’m not a follower of the weightlifting sport, I found Galabin Boevski’s story inspiring, and thoroughly enjoyed this book. Highly recommended!
I have received a free copy of this book from the author in exchange for an honest review.
Check out this review on my blog: EpicBookQuest.com
November 27, 2014
As an avid sports fan, I've always enjoyed athlete profiles, especially as a part of Olympic coverage. This might be the first full length Olympic biography I've read, and I enjoyed it.
The author is definitely a journalist, mixing detailed facts and reportage with the emotional threads of Galabin's life. He clearly illuminates the rather murky and disturbing world of Bulgarian weightlifting, and gives a very interesting window into that world in transition in the late 80s into the 90s and beyond.
Galabin Boevski is shown as a complicated figure with many sides, good and bad as he experienced the highest highs and a great many lows in his athletic career and life.
The parallel timelines ultimately converging made for an enjoyable narrative structure, though the bridge from the end of his athletic career to the prison was somewhat choppy and less fleshed out than the early life, career and end, and it left some ambiguity about whether some of the bad press at that time was warranted or not. But again given the author is a reporter, that's absolutely a fair approach.
Overall I found the translation good, but with some quirks of sentence structure and formatting that made it feel translated. But that is a minor quibble.
Strong book, and I appreciate the opportunity to learn more about this interesting figure and world.
I received a review copy from the author.
The author is definitely a journalist, mixing detailed facts and reportage with the emotional threads of Galabin's life. He clearly illuminates the rather murky and disturbing world of Bulgarian weightlifting, and gives a very interesting window into that world in transition in the late 80s into the 90s and beyond.
Galabin Boevski is shown as a complicated figure with many sides, good and bad as he experienced the highest highs and a great many lows in his athletic career and life.
The parallel timelines ultimately converging made for an enjoyable narrative structure, though the bridge from the end of his athletic career to the prison was somewhat choppy and less fleshed out than the early life, career and end, and it left some ambiguity about whether some of the bad press at that time was warranted or not. But again given the author is a reporter, that's absolutely a fair approach.
Overall I found the translation good, but with some quirks of sentence structure and formatting that made it feel translated. But that is a minor quibble.
Strong book, and I appreciate the opportunity to learn more about this interesting figure and world.
I received a review copy from the author.
August 14, 2014
Galabin Boevski was too small and not well enough connected for acceptance on the football team at Plaven’s sport school so he opted to try weightlifting. It was a propitious decision. He proceeded to set records, earn prizes, wealth and win medals—including Olympic Gold. Officials both rightly and wrongly accused him of doping, coaches and authorities stabbed him in the back, and when he made the foolish mistake of buying new luggage in São Paulo, he was busted with nine kilos of coke surreptitiously sewn into the lining of the suitcase. Hefting the bulk of a weightlifter then kept him alive for two years in a Brazilian prison.
The world of Bulgarian weightlifting is certainly an esoteric topic and not one I had given much thought, but sports writer, Ognian Georgiev’s journalistic style lends this story—which is based on fact—a kind of urgency that keeps the pages turning. Boevski’s rise from obscurity, his financial and professional insecurity; physical setbacks, and ultimately, legal struggles, present a compelling story that could unfold anywhere in any sport. This book has the earmarks of the Louis Zamperini story, Unbroken. Whether you are a sports enthusiast or not, this is a great read.
The world of Bulgarian weightlifting is certainly an esoteric topic and not one I had given much thought, but sports writer, Ognian Georgiev’s journalistic style lends this story—which is based on fact—a kind of urgency that keeps the pages turning. Boevski’s rise from obscurity, his financial and professional insecurity; physical setbacks, and ultimately, legal struggles, present a compelling story that could unfold anywhere in any sport. This book has the earmarks of the Louis Zamperini story, Unbroken. Whether you are a sports enthusiast or not, this is a great read.
April 18, 2018
A harrowing look into the life of one of the greatest Olympic Weightlifters to come out of the infamous Bulgarian system.
Battling the unyielding coaching input of the late Ivan Ababadjiev, while desperately trying to support his family during a time of political strife and uncertainty, Galabin Boveski overcomes adversity in his pursuit of World Records and Olympic Medals.
This book is a must-read for Olympic Weightlifting fans. It contains a number of interesting, occasionaly amusing, anecdotes covering a range of other Bulgarian lifters; as well as providing an honest, first-hand insight into the notorious Bulgarian system.
Battling the unyielding coaching input of the late Ivan Ababadjiev, while desperately trying to support his family during a time of political strife and uncertainty, Galabin Boveski overcomes adversity in his pursuit of World Records and Olympic Medals.
This book is a must-read for Olympic Weightlifting fans. It contains a number of interesting, occasionaly amusing, anecdotes covering a range of other Bulgarian lifters; as well as providing an honest, first-hand insight into the notorious Bulgarian system.
January 31, 2014
Ognian wrote his true story about Galabin Boevski in his first book like a writer. Based on true fact, the book is very interesting not only for professional readers, but for any, who love true facts. "The white prisoner - The secret story of Galabin Boevski" is perfect debut on Ognian, who is sport journalist and cover last two summer Olympics in Beijing and in London for his newspaper. The book must be read of one breath. Enjoy!
February 4, 2015
Review to come!
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews