Angela Rodel is a professional literary translator living and working in Bulgaria. She has translated Milen Ruskov’s novel Thrown into Nature (2011), Zachary Karabashliev’s 18% Gray (2013) and Angel Igov’s A Short Tale of Shame (2013) and Georgi Tenev’s Party Headquarters (2015), Virginia Zaharieva’s novel Nine Rabbits (2012) and many others. In 2014, she was awarded Bulgarian citizenship for her translation work and contribution to Bulgarian culture and her translations have received multiple awards including the National Book Center’s 2015 Peroto Prize, the 2016 AATSEEL Prize for Best Book of Literary Translation, as well as NEA and PEN Center grants. She is currently the Executive Director of the Bulgarian-American Fulbright Commission.
Georgi Gospodinov is a Bulgarian poet, writer and playwright. 'One of the foremost European writers of today', says about him Alberto Manguel. Gospodinov’s debut novel, Natural Novel (1999), is published in 23 languages including English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Icelandic. The New Yorker described it as an 'anarchic, experimental debut'. According to The Guardian, it is 'both earthy and intellectual', Le Courrier (Geneve) called it 'a machine for stories'. He is also known for The Physics of Sorrow (2012) – he wins with it several awards (National Award for Best Novel of the Year, Central European Angelus Award, Jan Michalski Prize) and shortlisted for a few others. He has also published four books with short stories and two plays. His last book Timeshelter (2020) topped the bestselling-books charts in Bulgaria.
Tom Philips is a poet, translator, playwright and teacher. His poems have been published in magazines and anthologies, and in his poetry book Recreation Ground. His translations of Bulgarian poetry have been published in the magazines Modern Poetry in Translation and Raceme, and his poems have been translated into Bulgarian, French and Albanian. Tom writes travelogues on Southeast Europe for the Star & Crescent magazine, academic texts and plays. He teaches creative writing at Bath Spa University and is co-editor of the new literary magazine Balkan Poetry Today. Tom is also a former resident of Sofia Literature and Translation House.
Kristin Dimitrova is a Bulgarian poet, writer, translator and journalist. She has won numerous national awards for poetry, for fiction and for poetry translation (John Donne and Lewis Carroll). Her recent poetry books are: The Garden of Expectations and the Opposite Door (2012) and Dear Passengers (2019). Poems, short stories, and essays by Kristin Dimitrova have been translated into 27 languages in all and published in 35 countries.
Eireene Nealand is currently a Next Page Resident and Fulbright Specialist at the Sofia House of Translation and Literature. Her stories, poems and translations have appeared in ZYZZYVA, Drunken Boat, The Chicago Quarterly, and the St. Petersburg Review, among other places. With Alta Ifland she recently translated Marguerite Duras’ book 'Le camion as The Darkroom (Contra Mundum Press 2021).
Blagovesta Pugyova is an activist as well as a poet. After studying finance at UNWE and tax law at the London School of Economics, she returned to Bulgaria to found the Give a Book Foundation, to help connect orphans and volunteers. She has received Person of the Year as well as several other awards for this work. Her poetry is published in America, in Poetry International, Catamaran Literary Reader и Drunken Boat. Her book Tomorrow At Ten on the Moon was published by Janet 45 in 2014.
Bistra Velichkova's book Small, Dirty, and Sad won first place in the Southern Spring National Contest for Debut Literature in Haskovo, Bulgaria (2015). She is also the author the poetry collection, God Is Waiting for Its Dealer (Ergo, 2018) and her work has been recognized in many literary contests including the Rashko Sugarev (2012) and the Paris Without Love (2010) short story competitions; as well as the Veselin Hanchev (2012), the Dimitar Boyadzhiev (2013), and the Tsarevo’s Municipality With Sea in the Heart (2016) poetry awards. Her fiction works have appeared in English in Drunken Boat,Catamaran Literary Reader, and Fiction Writers Review. In Bulgarian, she has published poetry and prose with Literary Newspaper, Starshel, Trud (newspapers); Granta Bulgaria, Stranitsa, LIK, More, NO poezia (magazines); LiterNet, Crosspoint, Dictum, Fakel, E-sushnost (online media).
Zlatomira Terzieva graduated from the High School of Economics in Stara Zagora. After that she decided to turn the direction of her life on its axis and enroll in the English Philology BA at the Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski. The English language is that one seemingly insignificant thing that significantly gives meaning to her life. The other thing is music because 'where words fail, music speaks'. Literature and music are what motivate her, makes her smile and wonder, what makes her want to learn and fly - even if it's just in between the pages of a book or the chords of a song.
Vladimir Poleganov is a writer, translator and a screenplay writer. He graduated both Clinical psychology and Creative Writing at Sofia University. He is the author of the short story collection The Deconstruction of Thomas S. and a novel The Other Dream. His short stories have been translated in many Bulgarian and English magazines and anthologies and his short story The Well won second prize at the National Short Story Competition ‘Rashko Sugarev’, The Other Dream won a Helicon’s Prize. The Birds is included in the anthology ‘Best European Fiction’ from publisher ‘Dalkey Archive Press’.
Watch the video from the event Back to Back / Face to Face:
Photos from the event Back to Back / Face to Face:
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The event is part of Sofia Literature and Translation house's program and is supported by the Bulgarian National Culture Fund.
