CONTEMPORARY BULGARIAN WRITERS » Translators

Andreeva, Bistra

Simona Ilieva — Thu, 07 Aug 2014 09:20:48 +0000

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.

Angel, Izidora

Simona Ilieva — Thu, 26 Jul 2018 11:19:06 +0000

Izidora Angel is a Bulgarian-born writer, translator and curator. She has written essays and critique in English and Bulgarian for the Chicago Reader, Publishing Perspectives, Drunken Boat (Anomaly), Banitza, Egoist, and others. She has edited works of fiction and nonfiction, and also worked as food critic and publishing consultant.

Izidora’s full-length translation of the multiple award-winning The Same Night Awaits Us All: Diary of a Novel by Hristo Karastoyanov, was published by Open Letter in 2018 with the support of the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation. While still translating the novel, Izidora was awarded a three-week literary residency at Open Letter Books, organized by the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation, received an English PEN Grant, and a fellowship at Art OMI in upstate New York.

Izidora holds a BA in Politics and Sociology of Contemporary Culture from the University of East Anglia and an MBA from the American University in Bulgaria. Currently, she lives in Chicago with her husband and three daughters, and works in advertising.

Buxton, Christopher

admin — Thu, 13 May 2010 11:00:21 +0000

Christopher Buxton

Since 2007 following the successful publication of my first novel, Far from the Danube, I have been concentrating on writing and translation. My second novel, Prudence and the Red Baron was published by Ciela in 2008 to critical acclaim. Radoslava and the Viking Prince was published by Millenium Press in 2011. Two children’s books The Princess Commander and the Seven Scallywags was published in Bulgaria in 2014. And another two novels, The Devil’s Notebook and Surge have been published in English and in Bulgarian by Znatsi..

For seven years now I have used my website to publicize Bulgarian novelists, short story writers and poets. Translations include significant 30 + page passages from novels: Emil Andreev’s Crazy Luke, Kalin Terziiski’s Madness, Ivailo Petrov’s Wolf Hunt, Milen Ruskov’s The Summit (rendered into Essex dialect). I have translated contemporary short stories by Zack Karabashliev, Vasil Georgiev, Ivan Landzhev, Deyan Enev – alongside modern and classic poets and writers from Botev to Elin Pelin to Margarita Petkova..

My translation of Rumen Balabanov’s short short story The Ragiad (Парцалияда) was published in Dalkey Press’s Best European Writing 2013. In 2014 I edited the translation of Alec Popov’s Mission London for Istros Books. My translation of Milen Ruskov’s work was used at the European Writers’ Award ceremony. My translation of Kerana Angelova’s “Interior Room” was published in the USA by Accents Press. I am also the founder of Bulgarian Publishing House, Black Sea Oleander Press which has published 4 anthologies of translated Bulgarian poetry. As Vice Chair of the UK British Bulgarian Society I have presented numerous Bulgarian writers for the Bulgarian Cultural Institute, including Alec Popov and Teodora Dimova. My work in promoting Bulgarian culture was recognized in 2015 by the Culture Minister and I was subsequently granted Bulgarian citizenship.

I am currently working on co-translating and editing “Experience” bu Rusana Bardarska.

Further details visit www.christopherbuxton.com

Dunne, Jonathan

Simona Ilieva — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 11:39:24 +0000

Jonathan Dunne was born in Kingston-upon-Thames, England, in 1968 and studied Classics at Oxford University. He is director of the publishing house Small Stations Press, which publishes quality literature in English and Bulgarian, including an anthology of Raymond Carver’s poetry and a Galician novel, The Carpenter’s Pencil, both in Bulgarian translation. He translates from Bulgarian, Catalan, Galician and Spanish into English. His translations of work by authors such as Iana Boukova, Tsvetanka Elenkova, Ivan Teofilov, Manuel Rivas and Enrique Vila-Matas have been published by Random House, Shearsman Books and Shoestring Press in the UK and Europa Editions, New Directions and Overlook Press in the US, and have appeared in the magazines Absinthe, Calque, Modern Poetry in Translation, Poetry Review, Poetry Wales and Zoland among others. They have been nominated for major literary prizes, including the 2003 International IMPAC Award, the 2008 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the 2009 Warwick Prize for Writing. He has written two books: a poetry collection, Even Though That (2004), and a study of English word connections, The DNA of the English Language (2007). Recent projects include the publication of the major Galician novel by Manuel Rivas Books Burn Badly and a comprehensive study of contemporary Galician poetry for Poetry Review, the magazine of the UK’s Poetry Society.

Selected Webliography:

Thirteen poems by Iana Boukova in Take Five 07 (Shoestring Press, 2007);

Three poems by Tsvetanka Elenkova in Absinthe (Spring 2007);

Seventeen poems by Tsvetanka Elenkova in The International Literary Quarterly (November 2008).

Frank, Elizabeth

Simona Ilieva — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 10:40:09 +0000

Elizabeth Frank was born in Los Angeles, and educated at secondary schools in London and Geneva. She received her B.A., M.A and Ph.D at the University of California, Berkeley. Since 1982 she has been a member of the literature faculty at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. She is the author of Jackson Pollock (Abbeville Press, 1983), Louise Bogan: A Portrait (Knopf, 1985), which won the Pulitzer Prize in Biography in 1986, Esteban Vicente (Hudson Hills Press, 1995), and Cheat and Charmer (Random House, 2005), a novel set in Hollywood during the McCarthy period. With Deliana Simeonova, she translated two novels by Angel Wagenstein, Farewell Shanghai (2007, Handsel Books of Other Press), and Isaac’s Torah (2008, Other Press). She lives with her daughter in New York City, travels often to Sofia, and is working on a new novel set in Bulgaria between 1999-2004, that is, from the time of the NATO bombing of the former Yugoslavia to the re-election of George W. Bush.