Bulgarian Fiction in Translation: A Reading List
On the heels of Time Shelter winning the International Booker Prize, here are more works of contemporary Bulgarian fiction you can read in English
This week, Time Shelter(opens in a new tab) (Georgi Gospodinov, tr. Angela Rodel) was named the recipient of the 2023 International Booker Prize. This marks the first time a Bulgarian title has won the award, which presents a long-overdue opportunity for Bulgarian literature and its translators to enter the limelight and enjoy more substantial recognition. In honor of Time Shelter‘s win, we’ve put together a reading list of more contemporary novels and short fiction translated from Bulgarian.
As Angela Rodel explained in an interview(opens in a new tab) with Gospodinov this month, Bulgarian literature is “relatively young,” which she sees as a potential cause for writers’ enthusiasm and inventiveness with regard to form and narrative structure— coupled with Bulgaria’s rich history of folk storytelling and epic poetry. “I find Bulgarian novels so interesting because they really don’t follow any kind of a mold. I think people are willing to take chances more than a long-established literature that has a very heavy canon, that sort of puts you in certain genre expectations… I think Bulgarians have always been very interested in how many different ways you can tell classic human stories.”
Alek Popov, tr. Daniella and Charles Edward Gill de Mayol de Lupe
“In 1991, two Bulgarian brothers, Ned and Angel, receive an unusual package from the USA; a black plastic box containing the ashes of their late father, Professor Emmanuel Banov. But are they really his ashes? How can the brothers be sure? And why would anyone want to fake their father’s death? 15 years later, as the brothers forge new and very different lives (Ned a management consultant; Ango a dog walker to the rich) in their new home in New York, some answers begin to emerge.
A darkly comic tale of disillusionment, The Black Box explores the nature and logic of neo-liberal capitalism and how so many of us are driven to acts of greed, imprudence, and recklessness in the pursuit of money and wealth.” — Peter Owen Publishers
Bogdan Rusev, tr. Ekaterina Petrova
Come to Me details the experience of coming-of-age in 1990s Bulgaria, in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse and the country’s transition to parliamentary democracy. Rusev’s novel delves into the drinking, drugging, partying life of Bulgarian youth of the period, juxtaposing dramatic social and political changes with young Bulgarians’ efforts to find distraction in intoxication, frantic activity, and young love. — Dalkey Archive Press
Hristo Karastoyanov, tr. Izidora Angel
“In June of 1923, a military coup established Aleksandar Tsankov as the new leader of Bulgaria. His fascist policies—especially aimed at the Bulgarian Communist Party—led to the failed September Uprising and an extended period of martial law.
At that same time, Geo Milev—one of Bulgaria’s most beloved poets—started a politically charged literary magazine with Georgi Sheytanov, a notorious anarchist on the run. Eighteen months later, the government assassinated both of them, although Milev’s body wouldn’t be found for another thirty years.
In this multilayered historical novel… Hristo Karastoyanov deconstructs this period, blending this adventurous tale of resistance with current-day reflections on what this period meant to Bulgaria and the world.” — Open Letter Press
Kalin Terziyski, tr. David Mossop
“A hymn to the city of Sofia, a series of whimsical character portraits, a literary mural of Bulgaria at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Is There Anybody There to Love You? is the first collection of stories from EU Prize-winning author Kalin Terziyski to be published in English. In these pages, you will meet the Collector of Valuable Things (packs of cigarettes, love letters, a magpie’s feather), a private eye at the end of his rope, and a young boy coming to terms, like the rest of us, with the mysteries of his existence.” — Dalkey Archive Press
This issue of Words Without Borders from March 2017 “includes work from eight thrilling writers from the Balkan nation of Bulgaria. While most readers may be hard-pressed to think of a Bulgarian writer other than 1981 Nobel laureate Elias Canetti, the poets, fiction writers, and essayists in this issue suggest Bulgarian letters are alive and well, spinning tales that grapple with everything from the Soviet years and exile to the most unusual of bookstores and the surest way to go blind.”
From the Edges of Europe includes fiction by Georgi Gospodinov, Theodora Dimova, Zachary Karabashliev, Yordanka Beleva, and more, and was guest edited by Svetlozar Zhelev and Angela Rodel.
