European practices for popularizing national literatures will be the focus of the discussions that this year the National Book Center /NCC/ at the National Palace of Culture is organizing under the title "Contemporary Bulgarian Literature in the Context of European Modernity". This became clear from the first meeting, which traditionally took place at the "Peroto" Literary Club. The discussion was attended by Mihaela Petrova - head of the NCC, Prof. Amelia Licheva - lecturer in "Theory of Literature" at Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski", Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ani Burova - lecturer in the Department of "Slavic Literatures" at Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" and Vera Petrova - program director of the Fifth Edition of the Sofia International Literature Festival. The moderator of the event was again Alexander Krastev.
The participants in the discussion united around the important role of the National Center for the promotion and popularization of Bulgarian national literature in the European cultural environment. Prof. Amelia Licheva recalled the programs of the National Center in support of contemporary Bulgarian literature, which supported the translations of works by authors such as Georgi Gospodinov, Teodora Dimova, Milen Ruskov and many others.
In turn, Mihaela Petrova – head of the National Center – opened the forum, emphasizing the role of contemporary literature in the development of the EU itself. “You know that the annual European Prize for Literature is given for debuts and since it was established in 2009, the majority of the authors awarded with it are representatives of the so-called minor languages. The prize has also provoked greater interest of Bulgarian publishing houses in debut writers. It is an incentive for them, they now have a motive to support this process. Because this is also part of the general European process,” said Mihaela Petrova. She also added that since the beginning of its existence, the NCC has already supported the translation of over 22 books by Bulgarian authors, which is an undisputed success.
In her speech, Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ani Burova noted that it is difficult to outline dominant themes in contemporary literature, since Bulgarian authors have been part of literary pluralism in recent decades. “For many of our authors, topics about the recent past, about the events of the second half of the 20th century, are interesting, and another specific topic that excites Bulgarian artists and their colleagues from Eastern Europe is about the existence of these countries after 1989. However, these topics have been interpreted in such different ways that it is difficult to reduce them to one specific model. The modern world is very complex, fragmented, and different groups of people have a different view of the world,” added Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ani Burova.
Prof. Amelia Licheva outlined other important trends in European literatures, also characteristic of Bulgarian literature – the tendency towards the dystopian and looking at the present day through the prism of the global scale. Vera Petrova shared her impressions of the policies for supporting the national literatures of the countries of the so-called Visegrad Four.
The participants in the discussion were unanimous that in policies in the field of translation and promotion of the dissemination of Bulgarian literature, the most important thing is consistency, i.e. all these translation programs should be regular, as this would lead to sustainable development of the environment.
Source: NCC
Photos from the NCC website: Orlin Ognyanov
Add comment