Tag Archives: Bulgarian literature

Frisch aus der Druckerei

Die Rezensionsexemplare von “Germanii”, dem von mir übersetzten Gedichtband von Vladislav Hristov, sind da – und sie sehen gut aus!

Image may contain: sky, ocean, outdoor and text

 

Rezensenten und Blogger: bei Interesse an diesem neuen Gedichtband bitte melden! (mail@rhizome-bg.com) – Ein paar Besprechungsexemplare sind noch vorhanden.

© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014-7. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content. 
© Photo: Elitsa Osenska, 2017

Vorankündigung: Vladislav Hristov – Germanii

Der Gedichtband “Germanii” des renommierten bulgarischen Dichters Vladislav Hristov erscheint in Kürze auf deutsch. Im Original erschien das Buch 2014 im Verlag Ergo in Sofia. Das Buch wurde von mir übersetzt, und ich bin natürlich ziemlich aufgeregt, meine erste längere Arbeit als Übersetzer bald in Buchform publiziert zu sehen.

Der Band bildet den Auftakt der Buchreihe “Stimmen aus Bulgarien”, in denen der Verlag Rhizome aus Sofia dem deutschsprachigen Lesepublikum bulgarische Literatur zeitgenössischer Autoren vorstellen wird. Diese Buchreihe wird von Elitsa Osenska und mir herausgegeben werden. Als zweites Buch ist ein Band mit Erzählungen von Jordanka Beleva geplant.

Vladislav Hristov wurde 1976 in Shumen, Bulgarien, geboren. Er lebt und arbeitet als Journalist und Photograph in Sofia.

Seine Gedichte wurden u.a. in den internationalen Literaturzeitschriften “Granta”, “Cider Press Review” und “Drunken Boat” veröffentlicht.

Er gewann zahlreiche Literaturpreise und Ehrungen: für Kurzprosa die Auszeichnung von LiterNet & eRunsMagazine (2007), den Nationalpreis für Haiku zu einem freien Thema (2010), den internationalen Haiku-Wettbewerb “Cherry blossom” (2011), und zwei der bedeutendsten bulgarischen Auszeichnungen für Dichtkunst – den Dobromir-Tonev-Preis (2015), und den Slavejkov-Preis (2015).

In drei aufeinanderfolgenden Jahren war er in der Rangliste der 100 kreativsten europäischen Haiku-Verfasser aufgeführt, und im Jahr 2016 fanden mehrere seiner Haiku Aufnahme in ein japanisches Universitätslehrbuch zum Thema.

Er ist Mitglied der “Haiku Foundation”. Seine Haiku sind u.a. in der Zeitschrift der Amerikanischen Haiku-Vereinigung “Frogpond”, in “World Haiku Review”, der Zeitschrift des Internationalen Haiku-Clubs, sowie in “Simply Haiku”, “The Heron’s Nest” und vielen anderen Zeitschriften veröffentlicht.

Im Jahr 2011 wurde eine Auswahl seiner Haiku von der deutschen Website “Haiku heute” und später in deren Jahrbuch publiziert.

Texte von Hristov sind in 16 Sprachen übersetzt. Auf bulgarisch liegen folgende Bücher von ihm vor: “Bilder von Kindern” (Kurzprosa, 2010), Enso (Gedichte, 2012 – nominiert für die höchste Auszeichnung für Dichtkunst in Bulgarien, den Ivan-Nikolov-Preis), “Phi” (Gedichte, 2013), “Germanii” (Gedichte, 2014) und “Countdown” (Gedichte, 2016). Ein Band mit Publizistik ist in Vorbereitung.

Eine kleine Kostprobe aus dem Band kann man hier finden.

Literaturkritiker, Rezensenten und Buchblogger, die das Buch besprechen wollen und ein Rezensionsexemplar zugesandt bekommen wollen, senden mir bitte eine Nachricht als Kommentar zu diesem Posting, am besten unter Angabe des Mediums, in dem die Rezension erscheinen soll. 

Weitere Informationen zum Buch mit genauem Erscheinungsdatum und Bestelldetails folgen bald an dieser Stelle in Kürze.

Der Buchumschlag stammt von Ivo Rafailov, der auch die bulgarische Originalausgabe gestaltet hat.

© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014-7. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
© Ivo Rafailov, 2014-7 (Umschlaggraphik)
 

 


Georgi Markov – a footnote on a recent edition

I am reading right now (in Bulgarian) a three-volume edition of the essays of the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov, who is for me one of the most remarkable Eastern European intellectuals of the time between the end of WWII and the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Unfortunately he is in the West mainly known for the fact that he was assassinated in a rather bizarre way by a hit-man in the service of the Bulgarian State Security, and not for his work and the brilliant analysis of the Bulgarian and other regimes in Eastern Europe.

The edition contains many essays that are – according to the information in the books – published here for the first time in print, and it is remarkable how fresh and highly relevant these essays that are at least four decades old, are today. A fact that says also something very unpleasant about the situation in Bulgaria – still very much run by the networks of people with links to the former Bulgarian State Security and their underlings – and most other Eastern European countries.

The publisher, who brought recently among others also Varlam Shalamov, Yevgenia Ginzburg, and works of Alexander Solzhenitsyn to the Bulgarian readers, has to be praised for this deed.

However, I have also to mention that the footnotes are to me very annoying. While some of them are ridiculously inadequate – is it really necessary to try to explain in two lines who Thomas Mann or Pablo Picasso were, and does the fact that the publisher added these footnotes mean that this edition is intended for an audience that is missing even an elementary Bildung? -, others are inaccurate, and even manipulative.

One example: Pablo Neruda is described in a footnote as an author that was “occupied by communist ideas”, which is clearly a strong understatement; he was in reality a Stalinist hardliner and active GPU/NKWD agent with blood on his hands; he played a big role in the Trotsky assassination, and allegedly some others, and he personally took care of deleting non-Stalinist leftists from the list of people that would be granted a place on a rescue ship and visa to Chile, people desperately trying to leave unoccupied France in 1940; Neruda knew perfectly well that his selection (I am almost tempted to write Selektion here) was in fact a death sentence for almost all of them, executed either by the Nazis, or by the assassination squads of Stalin (Victor Serge has written in detail about such murderous “intellectuals” as Neruda). The footnote about Neruda is in this context extremely misleading.

Another example is Günter Grass, who according to the footnote was a “far-left” writer. For those who don’t know it, Grass was a life-long supporter of the German Social Democrats, even when he left the party for few years out of disappointment; he wrote speeches for his close friend, Chancellor Willy Brandt, one of the most fervent German anti-Communists, and he was himself a lifelong anti-Communist. The German Social Democrats, and also Grass himself, were never “far-left”, and the footnote is either reflecting a completely uninformed editor, or is – what I don’t hope, but cannot completely dismiss as a possibility – intentionally manipulative, “far-left” being in Bulgaria a common epithet for a Communist sympathiser.

On the other hand, it is mentioned that Salvador Dali left Spain after the Civil War, but “refrained from political activities”; those who don’t know who Dali really was, might get the impression that he was an active anti-fascist who left the country to avoid persecution – while the truth is exactly the opposite: he showed a servile attitude towards the dictator Franco and open sympathies for fascism, and he had even the bad taste to (figuratively speaking) spit on the grave of his former best friend Garcia Lorca, who was murdered by Dali’s new friends. There was a reason why Max Ernst crossed the street when he got sight of Dali during his emigration, and it was not only for artistic reasons that he didn’t want to face his shameless plagiarist!

Unfortunately, all intellectuals with sympathies for the (democratic) left seem to be described in a way similar to Grass, while in cases of intellectuals or artists with fascist sympathies a sudden amnesia seems to have taken hold of the editors. 

But not only when it comes to Western artists and intellectuals, this edition goes astray; almost all Bulgarian authors – most of them household names for the readers of this edition; even the famous Blaga Dimitrova has her two-line resume – have a footnote; only Lyubomir Levchev, a key figure of Bulgarian literary life in the time of Communism is not worthy(?) of a footnote. This gifted poet, a close friend of Markov while the later dissident was still living in Bulgaria, who made a career as an orthodox Communist literary functionary, played for example a very active role in the persecution and partly expulsion of the Turkish minority in Bulgaria in the 1980’s (euphemistically called “Revival process” by the Communists), a role in which he seems to take pride until today.

I doubt very much that the missing footnote for Lyubomir Levchev was an editorial oversight (I have privately my suspicion for which reason the footnote is missing), and this missing footnote, together with the other inadequate, wrong, and manipulative footnotes decrease my pleasure in this otherwise great and valuable edition very much. I hope that this edition will see many reprints, and that many especially young Bulgarians will read it – but with more appropriate and correct footnotes!

Георги Марков: До моя съвременник; Ненаписаната българска харта; Ходенето на българина по мъките (3 volumes), Communitas Foundation, Sofia 2015-2016

My remarks are mainly based on the first of the three volumes, which I have finished so far.

© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014-7. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Kiril Vasilev: Bann

Bann 

Ausscheidungen von küchenschaben
auf dem weissen einband des buchs
mit gedichten von Paul Celan

das nichts getrennt durch punkte
und wieder verbunden durch kommata
vor den worten und danach

ich stellte das buch wieder hinter den schrank
nun lasst uns darüber streiten ob die erlösung
unsere stimmen überdauern wird

———————————————————–

Заклинание

Изпражнения на хлебарки
върху бялата корица на книга
със стихове на Паул Целан

нищото разделено с точки
и свързано отново със запетайки
преди думите и след тях

върнах книгата зад шкафа
нека  спорът за спасението
да надживее гласовете ни
 

Übersetzung aus dem Bulgarischen von Thomas Hübner

Kiril Vasilev: Provintsii, Small Stations Press, London Sofia 2015 

© Kiril Vasilev and Small Stations Press, 2015.
© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014-6. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Krasimir Vardiev: erstickte worte

erstickte worte
rauchwolken
nasse straßen
trübe schatten
vage klänge
was fehlt
über die stille hinaus
ich will
jemanden berühren
fühlen mir einprägen
gib mir feuer
sei mein licht
im dunkel
nur für eine weile


задушаващи думи
димни завеси
мокри улици
мътни сенки
смътни звуци
недостигащи
отвъд мълчанието
искам да докосна
почуствам запомня
някого
дай ми огънче
бъди ми светлина
в мрака
само за малко 

———————————————–

Übersetzung aus dem Bulgarischen von Thomas Hübner

Image may contain: 1 person, text

Krasimir Vardiev: s(r)amota, DA, Sofia 2016

© Krasimir Vardiev and DA Publishers, 2016.
© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014-6. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Krasimir Vardiev: varna 3

varna 3
 
varna
ist keine stadt
sondern ein zustand
den du
vergessen willst
und nicht kannst

—————————————

варна 3
 
варна
не е град
а състояние
да искаш
да забравиш
и да не можеш


Übersetzung aus dem Bulgarischen von Thomas Hübner

Image may contain: 1 person, text

Krasimir Vardiev: s(r)amota, DA, Sofia 2016

© Krasimir Vardiev and DA Publishers, 2016.
© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014-6. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Krasimir Vardiev: unsichtbar

unsichtbar
 
du sagst
dass es leichter ist sich zu schneiden
am papier
in diesem haus der stumpfen messer
und der aus allen ecken
sprießenden bücher
ich sage
dass es leichter ist
 
du sagst
dass du sterben kannst
vor lauter faulheit
es gibt wenig platz
und schon wieder ist es staubig
ich sage
dass ich sterben kann
 
du sagst
dass es zeit ist dass dein leben
irgendwohin führt
du verschwendest dich
vollkommen vergeblich
an deine und der leute
launen
und an einige bastarde
ich sage
dass es zeit ist
 
so reden wir
schon lange
und irgendwie
sind wir froh
dass nichts
sich geändert hat
unsichtbar zufrieden

—————————————————–
 

невидимо

казваш
по-лесно е да се порежеш
на хартия
в тази къща с тъпи ножове
и извиращи книги
от ъглите
казвам по-лесно е
 
казваш
може да умреш
от мързел само
мястото е малко
и пак е прашасало
казвам
може да умра
 
казваш
време е животът ти
да поеме нанякъде
пилееш се твърде
и напразно
по свои и хорски
приумици
и за разни гадове
казвам
време е
 
така си говорим
отдавна
и сме доволни
някак
че нищо
не се променя
невидимо доволни


Übersetzung aus dem Bulgarischen von Thomas Hübner

Image may contain: 1 person, text

Krasimir Vardiev: s(r)amota, DA, Sofia 2016

© Krasimir Vardiev and DA Publishers, 2016.
© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014-6. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Everything has a price

Today I bought five Bulgarian second-hand books at a book stall at Slaveykov Square in Sofia, all of them with personal dedications of the respective authors to the previous owner of these books, X., himself an important Bulgarian author and very influential person in the literary scene in Bulgaria.

The enthusiasm of the dedications, the evocations of friendship, respect, brotherly love by the authors to their colleague X. contrast very nicely with the more than nonchalant way, by which he got rid of these dedication copies, at a retail price of two leva (approximately one Euro) per piece. 

Everything has a price. The friendship, respect, brotherly love among authors can be bought sometimes at Slaveykov Square for two leva.

© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014-6. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

 


German Literature Month 2016

german-literature-month-vi

Recently I have been not very active on my blog but this is going to change again very soon.

One of the reasons is the upcoming German Literature Month 2016, hosted again by Caroline (Beauty is a Sleeping Cat), and Lizzy (Lizzy’s Literary Life) in which I will of course participate with a few books – which ones I will decide at a later stage. 

I will also try to post some reviews from the past Bulgarian Literature Month which are still missing, and I have read also a few other interesting books which I may review here, if my time budget will allow it.

© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014-6. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

“Neue Sachlichkeit (Wannsee)”, von Vladimir Sabourin

НОВА ПРЕДМЕТНОСТ (WANNSEE)

Клайст натиска бавно спусъка
ако S-Bahnа мине оттам
по същото време
би било съвпадение.


Neue Sachlichkeit (Wannsee)

Kleist spannt langsam den Abzug
wenn die S-Bahn dort genau
in diesem Moment vorbeigekommen wäre
wäre das ein Zufall gewesen.

 

Übersetzung aus dem Bulgarischen: Thomas Hübner

Das Original wurde zuerst hier, die Übersetzung hier veröffentlicht. Mein Dank geht an den Autor, Vladimir Sabourin.

© Vladimir Sabourin, 2016 
© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014-6. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without expressed and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.