Contact:
E-mail: p.l.m.skipp@gmail.com

Biography

Angel Igov was born on 3 July 1981 in Sofia. He graduated with diplomas in English and American Studies and Literary Studies from Sofia University St. Kliment Ohridski, where he is currently a PhD student in European Literature. He has been a Fulbright visiting researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, and a grantholder of the Halma international program. Igov has published one novel, A Short Tale of Shame (2011) which won the EKF contest for writers in English translation the same year (together with Zachary Karabashliev’s 18 % Grey), and two collections of short stories. The first of those, Road Encounters (2002), won the Southern Spring award for debut in fiction (2003), and the second one, K. (2006), was nominated for the Elias Canetti award (2007). Igov also holds an award from the Rashko Sugarev contest for his short story Everything (2002).
Igov has worked as a literary critic and journalist for the weekly Kultura as well as several journals, a radio show, and a TV show. In this capacity, he took part in the juries of the Vick prize for novel of the year (2007) and the Ivan Nikolov prize for poetry book of the year (2009). For his activity as a critic he was nominated for the Hristo G. Danov award in 2006.
He is also a freelance literary translator, having translated several novels by authors such as Ian McEwan, Paul Auster, Angela Carter, Martin Amis etc., as well as Wordsworth and Coleridge’s Lyrical Ballads. Two of his translations were nominated for the Krastan Dyankov prize in 2008 and 2009 respectively, and he is a member of the Union of translators in Bulgaria.

Synopses

Synopsis of the novel A Short Tale of Shame by Angel Igov

The story of the novel is told in the third person yet through the eyes of its four protagonists in turns.

The first chapter opens suddenly with a middle-aged man driving three young hitchikers – two girls and a boy – in his car. As the man, Krustev, is trying to surmise what his fellow travelers are like, they recognize him as the former guitar player of a one-time popular rock band and, more importantly, the father of a girl with whom the three have seemingly had an uneasy relationship. Through dialogue and through Krustev’s thoughts readers get some hints as to his background and the general setting of the novel:  a country that geographically and culturally resembles Bulgaria but its history and ethnography seem to have gone some alternative way. Readers also learn that Krustev’s journey has no clear point: he has just started off in the morning, driving anywhere, before picking up the hitchikers.

The second chapter is told through the eyes of one of the girls, Maya. She has guessed Krustev must be living through some emotional crisis. This chapter reveals information about the friendship of the three hitchikers (Maya, Sirma, and Spartacus). Through Maya’s retrospection readers learn how the three, now aged around 20-22, met in their fresher year in high school. The difficult progress of their unusually strong friendship is followed through retrospectively humorous teenage events and emotions. The crucial point in building their friendship was Sirma telling Maya about her first sexual experience in a deliberately crude and self-aggressive way.

Spartacus takes his turn in the third chapter, telling about the trio’s hitchiking this day. Before they met Krustev, they traveled with an old wannabe writer from the countryside whom Spartacus ridicules in a phonetically ingenious passage. Readers learn more about the general region where the novel is set: a pastiche of mock Balkan states, exploiting common stereotypes about the region, with complex history, ethnic strifes, and toppled communist regimes. Spartacus then recalls how Krustev’s daughter, Elena, met the three friends and persistently tried to break into their unusual friendship, before initiating a passionate affair with him much to the displeasure of the other two girls.

The fourth chapter is told through the eyes of Sirma, a strikingly independent and sceptic young woman. While watching Krustev driving, she also falls into retrospection, gradually revealing more of the pre-story of the novel, especially the character of Elena whom she perceived as an intruder to their exclusive trio, using Spartacus as a means to get inside. She dwells for a time on her uneasy relationship with her family before falling back into more humorous stories from her teenage years. By this time, all four  journey-makers have decided to go to the island of Thasos by ferryboat, while also speculating about moving to far-off Rhodes next, an island belonging to another mock Balkan state from where Sirma’s great-grandfather came many years ago. Sirma is however worried by the perspective of spending so much time with Elena’s depressed father; at the end of the chapter, taking a clue from the position of the man’s wedding ring, Sirma realizes Krustev has (perhaps recently) been widowed.

In the fifth chapter, we find the characters on their way to Thasos with the ferryboat. This chapter is mostly focused on the story of how Krustev’s estranged wife, Irina, died after spending several months in coma. Krustev’s emotions and perceptions are followed in detail through flashbacks and flashforwards. Irina died shortly after their daughter Elena came back from her studies in the US; catalyzed by her mother’s death, Elena managed to break through to her incommunicado father but then left again. Back in the novel’s present, the four journey-makers arrive at a camping site on Thasos, the narrative exploring Krustev’s uneasiness with the much younger, liberal and relaxed trio. Meanwhile,  he has told a story that later proves to be symbolic, of how in his youth he received a gift from an old fisherman: a guitar that ought to be played only by the seaside. Krustev, however, after the start of his business career, has not played any guitar for quite some time.

The sixth chapter drifts back to Maya, exploring her feelings about what is happening, her sexuality, the story of her parents’ divorce, and the inherent conflicts in the peculiar threefold friendship. This chapter resumes more poignantly the theme of ethnicity in the mock Balkan region, Krustev belonging to a “Slavic”-speaking minority in a “Thracian”-dominated state, thus his daughter is of mixed ancestry. The ambiguities of the latter concept are touched upon in Maya’s recollection of her childhood wonderment how could possibly the girl sitting next to her be “half-something” and “half-another”. The theme is sustained in Maya’s conversation with two French tourists, amusingly bewildered by the ethnic and linguistic complexity of the region; some hints on the historical roles of the Great Powers in this complexity are given.

The seventh chapter starts in a surrealistic setting that turns out to be Spartacus’ dream during the following night. The dream is rife with flashbacks of the journey with the wannabe writer, which humorously yet disturbingly intersect with images arising from the boy’s intuition about a possible crisis in his relationship with the two girls. Feeling confused in the presence of the man whose daughter he has dated, Spartacus graphically recalls his passionate affair with Elena. Their relationship seems to have come to a crisis after Elena confessed to harbouring sexual fantasies involving Maya and Sirma too.

Sirma takes turn again in the key eighth chapter. While traveling on a second ferryboat from Thasos to Rhodes, she recalls a detailed story of how she was given a taste of a teenage life centred on drugs and violence. Incidentally, for just one night Sirma took part in a girls’ gang dominated by a charismatic blonde girl who seemed to enjoy watching the decay of her friends, while she herself would not take drugs or use the money they took from helpless kids. The asymmetry between different teenage lifestyles is explored, with Sirma only gradually realising the seriousness of the drug dimension in the gang, this leading to a poignant scene of nausea which repeats itself in the novel’s present. Sirma’s story is told in a perplexed view that leaves doubts as to her narrator reliability and generally the “reality status” of the narrative, especially as to the illusory (or not) character of a symbolic kiss which the gang leader gives to a victim but which Sirma interprets as if meant for her. Only later, after the intruding Elena started her affair with Spartacus, Sirma managed to put the pieces together and realize Elena and the gang leader are the same girl. The chapter ends with some information on Sirma’s semi-mythical great-grandfather coming from Rhodes, and a contextually important conversation about hubris and shame.

In the ninth chapter the foursome arrive on Rhodes, the island’s atmosphere gradually reinforcing the semi-mythical note. Krustev, reaching a somewhat cathartic decision not to delve in the trio’s secrets, drifts back in his memories of his previous visit on the island with his wife and daugher. Emotionally, the visit culminated in an adultery that Krustev gave up halfway through because it was not disgusting enough; thus revealing that he too, just as the three younger characters (and Elena) has an inclination towards self-humiliation and self-aggression. Krustev grasps an opportunity to leave his fellow travelers and go to a tiny restaurant he has visited with his family the previous time. In the slightly unreal atmosphere of the restaurant, Krustev breaks and tells his whole story to the charismatic proprietor, who in turn lectures him on the topic of shame and gives him his own guitar as a present, echoing Krustev’s earlier guitar story.

Sirma’s final, ninth chapter leads the novel’s plot to a climax with the reader led to expect first a sexual scene between the three friends, and then crisis and tragedy. Sirma finally reveals how she has managed to chase Elena off in the past, although she never had the feeling of complete victory over her because she was forced to hear Elena’s own story of her life (which we never learn). After a disturbing dream echoing Spartacus’ earlier one, Sirma manages to steer her friends and herself past the ripening crisis by suddenly realizing, and expressing, the comic dimension to their relationship. However, when the three friends start looking for Krustev in the night, they only find the guitar he brought from the restaurant, left on the beach. They are immediately scared, because, as pointed out several times in the novel, Krustev (literally and symbolically) cannot swim. They enter the sea expecting to find him drowning but he appears, having miraculously learned to swim, and the foursome sit on the beach with Krustev playing the guitar for the first time since long ago. The older man then tells them he had received a text message from Elena who was expecting him home, and after some hesitation, all four decide to go back. At the very end, another surrealistic and allegoric scene comes, with Elena sleeping in her father’s garden, possibly having alternative yet overlapping dreams; the novel ends with her opening eyes.

Excerpts

• A Short Tale of Shame by Angel Igov, translated by Angela Rodel

Contact

• Angel Igov:
  E-mail: amigov@gmail.com
• Ciela Soft and Publishing::
  E-mail: education@ciela.net

Related Links

• http://amigov.wordpress.com/

Biography

Vesel Tzankov was born on 27 July 1963 in Sofia, Bulgaria. He is married and has a daughter.

Since 1979, he has written and authored a large number of humorous short stories published in newspapers and magazines, radio and television humorous sketches, drama for radio and theater, two television comedy series, several books of humorous short stories, a fantasy novel, and a satirical novella. Since 1997, he has published a topical satire column in the Sega daily newspaper. From 1996 to 2004, he was the chief scriptwriter for a weekly national television comedy show.

Since 1991, he has worked as an Editor in the Humour and Satire Department of the Bulgarian National Radio Company’s Hristo Botev  program for Culture. In 2002, he became Lead Editor of the Department, and in 2007 he became the program’s Culture Division Leader.

In its 2003 review of publications marking April Fools Day, the French Le Monde daily named his feuilleton, April Fools Day for National Day as the best joke of the year.

Vesel Tzankov has won a number of literary prizes, as well as the Annual Award of the Union of Bulgarian Journalists for 2000.

Publications

• The Blog of the Local Idiot, a humorous novel, Ciela Soft and Publishing, 2011;
• Let Us not Be Skinny. 55 Well-tried Recipes, a collection of moral-culinary playful essays, Georgiev and Daughter Publishing House, 2009 (published with the support of The Union of Bulgarian Journalists);
• Pixel, a fantasy novel, Georgiev and Daughter Publishing House, 2008 (received the third prize for novel writing at the Sixth edition of the annual awards of Argus Publishing House);
• Do You Get me Right?, a monodrama of the comedian Georgi Mamalev, Tear and Laughter Theater, 2002-2007;
• Jo-ho-ho and a Bottle of Bromine, a collection of humorous short stories, Rayko Aleksiev Foundation and Ivan Vazov Publishing House, 1998.

Synopses

Synopsis of the novel Pixel by Vesel Tzankov

What would our life be if we lived in a 3,000,000,000-strong megalopolis? How would all these people be induced to think no more than is necessary, especially since there are no more Pyramids to be built? Can one gain awareness of oneself as a person despite the System? And what, in fact, is the System: is it God, or fiction, is it a monstrous plot, or is it something yet different?

These were the questions I posed myself while writing my novel, Pixel. If I had to define the novel in a single sentence, I would say it shows life in the Metropolis described in The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

The City Board is facing a problem. In order to resolve it according to the rules of bureaucratic aesthetic, the bigwigs resort to Pixel 1D4C00: one of 1,920,000 officers in the virtual computer screen’s video memory. Wandering around the city, hiding among the hackers, and delving into his memory, the Pixel 1D4C00 gradually discovers the man within himself.

Somebody is killing off the doubles of the City Chief Secretary. Who is it that wants to drive him over the edge and make a point as subtle as a hammer blow to the teeth? Is it Oldfish, head of the City Board and opponent of his appetite for greater authority? Is it Big Boss, Chief Plumber, who wants to drive through a successive City infrastructure project as a way of laying hands on a tidy budget sum that Chief Secretary’s allies also covet? Could it be the hackers? Could it be fighters for this cause or that? Or, indeed, could it be a maniac with too much spare time on his hands?

One day, Pixel 1D4C00, who is responsible for the colour and brightness of the last pixel along at the bottom right hand side of the virtual computer screen, sees a stranger at the workstation of his best and only friend, Pixel 1D45C3. Everyone claims that this stranger is indeed Pixel 1D45C3. Setting out to track down his friend, Pixel 1D4C00 gradually leaves the herd, becoming ever more suspicious, until he is ultimately challenged by an AntiVirus Realtime Auto-Protect System patrol.

While on the run, the pixel comes upon a group of hackers living semi legally amid the City’s foundations. In conversations with the hackers’ leader Old Man Matey, with the thin bodybuilder Beefcake, and with Boss Man who has abandoned a brilliant City career to exercise his human right to laziness, Pixel 1D4C00 continues exploring his individuality.

Apprehended by the forces of law and order, the pixel is returned to the City. Here, he at last finds his friend and realises that the System needs even its smallest cog if the gigantic mechanism is not to come to a grinding halt. Is whoever helps a System that makes all faceless a traitor or an individualist? No, this is not the main dilemma facing Pixel 1D4C00, who is more troubled by the opportunity of taking an independent decision. He exercises his choice, and the Board dilemma is resolved. The System continues to function: until the next conflict, at least.

The manuscript comprised 250 pages (56,000 words).

Excerpts

• Pixel by Vesel Tzankov, translated by Peter Skipp

Contact

• Vesel Tzankov:
  E-mail: vesel_tzankov@mail.bg

Related Links

• http://vesel.info

Biography

Ivanka Mogilska was born in 1981. She studied six semesters of Theater Directing at the National Academy for Theater and Film Arts and graduated in Public Relations from the Sofia University.

She is the author of the collection of poetry Otherwise (Janet 45 Print and Publishing, 2010), the novel Hideaways (Janet 45 Print and Publishing, 2007) and the collection of poetry DNA (Janet 45 Print and Publishing, 2004).

In 2005, DNA won the Pegasus Award for Poetic Debut at the Southern Spring Competition in Sofia. In 2008, Hideaways was selected by the European First Novel Festival, part of the International Book Festival in Budapest. Ivanka read her works in the Bulgarian Cultural Center in Budapest and in Pecz, Hungary.  In 2010, she took part in the Universal Meeting or Tales on the Phone project as a tales writer.  Later, the tales were published in a collection. In 2011, she took part in the creation of the performance DNA of Words or an instrument for playing poetry along with the artist Albena Baeva.

Synopses

Synopsis of the novel Hideaways by Ivanka Mogilska

Hideaways is a novel about the city, two women and a bar.
The two female protagonists tell their stories in parallel. Each of them offers her point of view.
Cara has a promising job. A splendid future. A strict schedule.
Eve has time. Memories to leave behind, a desire to break her schedule and a secret that she should keep and turn over to the right person.
One Friday night they are brought together by chance in a strange bar where everyone looks happy. And the reason for that happiness, it seems, lies in Eve – the woman who never leaves the bar, as it turns out. Cara is possessed by the thought of getting to know Eve. To figure out her secret. To realize what makes her so special. Gradually she gives up her job. She starts following Eve continuously. Fantasizing about her life. Playing out different versions of it.
The main character in the novel is the city. You won’t recognize any particular city. It remains unnamed. You will see the city where all of this can happen. A place of unexpected directions and cul-de-sacs. With smoky underground bars where you will never come back. A city of noises, screaming, paranoia, alcohol, taking you to unsuspected catacombs. A city of laughter and grief, of criminal stories – shooting inside a cafe, a suicider who decides to blow out their temple sitting in their car in the parking lot, a contractor who wants to remove the statue of a girl from the city square to build there a new, cold building wrapped is steel.
The plot jumps around in time. At times it takes the reader to the past where everything is secure, and at others brings them to the present, which often tortures them or shows them pictures from the far off future.
This is the story of a person trying to figure out the personal story of another person. This is a story in  which the chased one, on her part, tries to recognize herself in the chaser. And instead of calling the police or turning to logic for help, the chased one sympathizes with her unknown chaser, starts getting to know her, figuring out her secrets, even allows to be followed, eavesdropped, sought.
When a third person appears between the two protagonists, “the victim” and the chaser suddenly lose interest in each other, they grow apart, they hesitate about their emotions and even take vengeance.
Only two of the characters in the novel have names, but even they are arbitrary. The chaser has invented a name for her victim. And the victim, on her part, is convinced about the personality of her chaser. The viewpoints in the novel change unexpectedly and even in a cinematographic way. At the end, readers ask themselves whether this is not the story of one person only, seen in her youth, and then in her maturity.
Inside the main plot, some other, quite common stories are intertwined. A story of a family with two kids who suffer of the strained atmosphere at home. The story of another couple walking in the street – and the harmony between those two is palpable, because it is built on compromise and tenacity, on beauty and the secret between them.
The novel studies smile and laughter. The characters are in a constant search of joy, easiness, emancipation from everyday life. They want to figure out the anatomy of laughter, the cardiovascular system of smiles. They try to capture those feelings and relations between two people, not named by the people, but which everyone has felt.
The characters find out that the hope to touch the other at least for a second is a reason enough to go on. (But where exactly is “on”?) To give up the schedule, to leave yourself to the streets of the city that  know better than you when it is time to break up, when it is time to find and when the way is more important than the goal. Because words are extremely not enough…

Excerpts

• Hideaways by Ivanka Mogilska, translated by Svetlana Komogorova – Komata

Contact

• Ivanka Mogilska:
  E-mail: mogilska@gmail.com
• Janet 45 Print and Publishing:
  E-mail: books@janet45.com

Related Links

• http://www.sifon4o.blogspot.com
• http://www.public-republic.net/hideaways.php