Issue 44 - February 2008

New publications

Raymond Detrez, Kosovo: The Postponed Independence, translation from Dutch into Bulgarian by Raymond Detrez and Kralitsa Mab publishers (Sofia, 2008), supported by the Translating Current Debates program

The book offers new perspective towards key political and historical processes in a country, which is almost next door to Bulgaria. Prof. Raymond Detrez is an academic and an expert on the Balkans that is capable of offering an independent view-point on the region. Analyzing Serbian and Albanian myths about Kosovo he refuses to engage himself with one or the other side of the conflict. The Bulgarian edition of the book includes some new chapters on the latest developments in the region and is published just few days after the announcement of the country’s independence and - contrary to most media reactions - provides the much needed critical and historical depth in discussing this controversial issue.

Investigative Journalism by Hugo de Burgh – already available online in Serbian

The Serbian translation of Investigative Journalism. Context and Practice by Hugo de Burgh has also appeared on the Internet this month – as a start 30% of each chapter has been uploaded on the Belgrade’s Media Center’s website. The full-text printed version by Clio Publishers came out in 2007 and the readers can find it in libraries and bookshops around the country.

Investigative Journalism is the sixth online publication of the translations supported by Next Page within the Media and Journalism Translation Project, a program aiming to assist media professionals and journalism training efforts in Southeastern Europe and launched in cooperation with the OSI Media Program and the South East European Network for Professionalization of Media (SEENPM).

East - East exchange in cultural periodicals

The 4th 2007 issue of Fakel magazine (Bulgaria), supported by the East Translates East program for translations in cultural periodicals, has just come out. Fakel is a quarterly literary and political magazine, which has already been published for almost three decades. The new issue features Vassiliy Aksionov’s novel Moskva-kva-kva, Danila Privalov’s play in two parts Wonderful Faraway (sad utopia) and over 10 other translations of recently published interviews and literary texts, contemplating on the dilemmas of today’s world.

Three issues of the Slovenian Apokalipsa magazine, supported by the East Translates East program for translations in cultural periodicals, dedicated to special philosophical and feminist topics, have also been published within the past months. The magazine has been coming out since 1994 and the editors proudly say that reading Apokalipsa is reading between tradition and innovation as it carefully connects the feelings and reflections of the younger generation with the spiritual base of the passing millennium and the challenges to come, concerning both literature and philosophy.

The magazine is part of the international project Review within Review, using the existing infrastructure of 15 literary and cultural periodicals in 12 countries in Central and Eastern Europe to present contemporary literature, essays and other works of art from the region without the mediation of “big” languages.