The novel "Onde estão as flores" ("As Flowers Go: Escape to Homeland Amazonia") by Bulgarian writer Ilko Minev ranked second in the list of best-selling books in Brazil for the period 20-26 March 2023, the website Ploshtadslaveikov reported. 

The novel's protagonist, Licco Hazan, is an elderly man born in Bulgaria who settles in Amazonia. The book recounts the little-known and intensely intriguing story of how 50,000 Bulgarian Jews were rescued from the gas chambers during Nazi domination of Europe, details the flow of Jewish immigrants to the country's sparsely populated northern Manaus region and advocates, without ideologizing, a world without war, the book's synopsis in the ranking states.

In a 2018 interview with Radio Bulgaria's Albena Bezovska, Ilko Minev tells how he ended up in Brazil: 'In 1969, something happened in my life that surprised me and turned me into a dissident. In fact, a very good friend of mine became a dissident and the State Security did not believe that I was not involved. It became difficult for me, it was clear that I had no future in Bulgaria. The opportunity arose to leave the country and I went to Belgium, where I studied economics, and in 1972 I went to Brazil. Soon after my arrival I went to Manaus for three months and I have been there for 46 years now."