Issue 54 - January 2009

Experiencing the Life of a Roma Boy

Next Page Foundation is glad to announce the release of the gamebook Cigany.Labirintus (Gypsies. A Labyrinth) by Peter Kardos and Gabor Nyari, published as a part of our comiXculture project. The Bulgarian edition of the Hungarian original is translated by Svetla Kiosseva and published in cooperation with Kralitza Mab publishing house. The book is adapted for Bulgarian context to allow for the reader to identify with the main personage and to experience familiar surroundings through his eyes.

Gypsies. A Labyrinth is entertaining, yet serious and challenging reading. The main character is a Roma boy. His story begins when he is 18 years-old and is leaving the children’s home where he grew up . From this moment on, his life is in the hands of the reader who is building his destiny by the choices made. In developing the story, the player gets acquainted with the dreams, hopes and wishes of the boy. Simultaneously, in each step, he faces the social stereotypes and the boundaries imposed by society. And of course, luck, either good or bad, plays its role in shaping the story and leads the player towards one of the many possible ends of the labyrinth.

Next Page donated free copies of the book to Roma schools and residential institutions around the country. Gypsies. A Labyrinth is also in commercial distribution and is already receiving very positive responses from the reading audience.

Mirror Publications in Cultural Periodicals

Winning a grant within the East Translates East (ETE) program for periodicals in 2006 was a chance for the small team of the Critique and Humanism magazine, based in Bulgaria, to realize a longly cherished idea - to work with small language journals in the sphere of science and culture. The initiators attracted Kulturos Barai (Lithuania) and Kritika & Kontext (Slovakia), and together with Eurozine (Austria) started the joint Diagnosing the Present project.

The partnering journals were also inspired by the ETE belief that sharing literary and intellectual achievements within Central and Eastern Europe is crucual to the region’s development. The main goal of the project was to stand for a higher public awareness of significant perspectives toward the key issues of the present - through translating, publishing and disseminating texts that elaborate on those perspectives. The associated journals are close to each other in profile, clearly focusing on problems of contemporary social experience and appear with similar frequency and format. 3 of them are situated in post-socialist states, following different “transition” and EU accession paths.

Each of the journals nominated a thematically focused “package” of papers, featuring outstanding writers and topics like: "Identity and Challenges of Consumer Morality" by Tomas Kavaliauskas, "Amorphous Society or Entering "Mature Postcommunism" by Almantas Samalavicius, "National-populism Against Democracy" by Antonyi Todorov, “Mobile Identities? Mobile Citizenship?” by Ivailo Ditchev, etc. Each group of texts was translated into the languages of the other partner-journals, and was published in their special printed issues.

All the publications could be read on Eurozine - in Bulgarian, Lithuanian, Slovak and also in English.