Andreeva, Bistra
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Born in the town of Targovishte in 1978, Bistra Andreeva attended the English Language High School in Ruse and graduated from the American University in Bulgaria with a BA in Journalism and Mass Communication. She later completed an MA in Cultural Policy and Management in Belgrade, Serbia, as well as an MA in Conference Interpreting from Sofia University.
Before she got involved with literary translation, Bistra had a five-year flirtation with the TV industry and an (equally long) fully committed relationship with the Bulgarian culture and arts magazine EDNO. Working as a cultural journalist and editor, she eventually became editor-in-chief and launched a bilingual version of the publication, gathering a team of translators and working closely with Angela Rodel as editor. Translating some of the articles herself, she developed a serious interest in the craft.
A freelancer since 2010, Bistra has translated from or into English several feature film screenplays, a series of 12 documentary films on Bulgaria, two non-fiction books on arts and culture, literary journalism stories and short stories for VICE Magazine.
Bistra has attended two of the annual Fiction Translation Ateliers organized by the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation and the Union of Bulgarian Translators. In 2012 she won EKF’s Fellowship for Literary Translators with her translation of an excerpt from Irina Papancheva’s novel Annabel. She was awarded a three-week residence at Open Letter Books, a leading literary translation press in Rochester, New York.
Bistra is currently working on two novels to be published by Janet 45 – Taiye Selasi’s Ghana Must Go and Stephen Kelman’s Pigeon English. She is also an active conference interpreter accredited to work with the EU institutions.