Tag Archives: non-fiction

My Book Year 2019

The year 2019 is almost over and it is time to look back at my reading and blogging experiences.

After a hiatus, I started again to blog more or less regularly and I hope this will be also the case for 2020.

As for my reading, I didn’t keep a diary to track down the books I read this year, but the number is approximately 130, so roughly two and a half books per week, of which around 60% were fiction, 40% non-fiction. Almost all books I read were “real” printed books, only one book was read electronically. I read books in four languages (German, English, French, Bulgarian).

Every book year brings interesting discoveries, pleasant surprises, some re-reads of books I enjoyed in the past, and a few disappointments. Here are my highlights of the last year:

The most beautiful book I read in 2019: Arnulf Conradi, Zen und die Kunst der Vogelbeobachtung (Zen and the Art of Birdwatching)

Best re-reads in 2019: Michel de Montaigne, Essais; Karl Philipp Moritz, Anton Reiser; Salomon Maimon, Lebensgeschichte (Autobiography)

Best novels I read in 2019: Marlen Haushofer, Die Wand (The Wall); Uwe Johnson, Jahrestage (Anniversaries); Jean Rhys, Sargasso Sea

Best poetry books I read in 2019: Thomas Brasch: Die nennen das Schrei (Collected Poems); Johannes Bobrowski, Gesammelte Gedichte (Collected Poems), Franz Hodjak, Siebenbürgische Sprechübung (Transylvanian Speaking Exercise); Yehuda Amichai, The Poetry of Yehuda Amichai; Anise Koltz, Sich der Stille hingeben (Surrender to the Silence); Mahmoud Darwish, Unfortunately It Was Paradise; Vladimir Sabourin, Останките на Троцки (Trotzky’s Remains); Rainer René Mueller, geschriebes, selbst mit stein

Best Graphic Novel I read in 2019: Art Spiegelman, Maus

Best SF novel I read in 2019: Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, The Doomed City

Best crime novel I read in 2019: Ingrid Noll, Halali

Best philosophy book I read in 2019: Ibn Tufail, The Improvement of Human Reason

Best non-fiction books I read in 2019: Charles King, The Moldovans; Charles King, Midnight at the Pera Palace; Timothy Snyder, The Road to Unfreedom; Adriano Sofri, Kafkas elektrische Straßenbahn (Kafkas Electric Streetcar); Rebecca Solnit, A Field Guide to Getting Lost; Lucy Inglis, Milk of Paradise; Adina Hoffman and Peter Cole, Sacred Trash; Sasha Abramsky, The House of Twenty Thousand Books

Best art book I read in 2019: Hans Belting, Der Blick hinter Duchamps Tür (The View behind Duchamp’s Door)

Best travel book I read in 2019: Johann Gottfried Seume, Spaziergang nach Syrakus (Walk to Syracuse)

Biggest book disappointment in 2019: Elena Ferrante, Neapolitan Novels

Favourite book cover in 2019: Ivo Rafailov’s cover for the Bulgarian edition of Marjana Gaponenko’s Who Is Martha? (this edition is upcoming in January 2020)

Most impressive translator’s work: Jennifer Croft’s translation of Flights by Olga Tokarczuk; Vladimir Sabourin’s translations in his Bulgarian poetry anthology Радост на Началото (The Joy of the Beginning)

Most embarrassing authors in 2019: Peter Handke; Christoph Hein; Zachary Karabashliev

Good as always: Vladimir Sorokin, The Blizzard; Clarice Lispector, Near to the Wild Heart; Ismail Kadare, The Traitor’s Niche; Jabbour Douaihy, Printed in Beirut; Georg Klein, Die Zukunft des Mars (The Future of the Mars); Phillipe Claudel, Le rapport de Brodeck (Brodeck), Kapka Kassabova, Border; Naguib Mahfouz, The Midaq Alley

Interesting Authors I discovered in 2019: Samanta Schweblin, Mouthful of Birds; Olga Tokarczuk, Flights; Isabel Fargo Cole, Die Grüne Grenze (The Green Border); Hartmut Lange, Das Haus in der Dorotheenstraße (The House in the Dorotheenstraße); Erich Hackl, Abschied von Sidonie (Farewell to Sidonia)

And which were your most remarkable books in 2019?

© Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki, 2014-9. 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 with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

A necessary decision

Since March 2009 I have a profile on Facebook; and I’m also present on a few other social media portals, although I am not particularly (Twitter, LinkedIn) or not at all active (Instagram) there. Today I have decided to stop publishing texts on Facebook and also not to comment anymore on postings of others in the future.

For a very communicative person like me, who travels a lot due to his work and who has lived in different parts of the world, Facebook as an idea is not a bad thing. Such a platform basically offers the opportunity to share certain information with his friends and acquaintances in an easy way and to catch up with what’s going on in the circle of your friends and acquaintances. And in principle, it would also have the potential to bring people together who do not know each other in real life, but who share common interests and values. And in a few cases, that’s exactly what happened: through Facebook, I made the acquaintance of some people who have become important to me today. But this is – if I look back over the period of more than 10 years Facebook presence -, the exception rather than the rule. Unfortunately, apart from these rare personally enriching experiences, Facebook has become a place where I am confronted with more and more misery, anger, hatred, rage, and ugliness.

The business practices of Facebook are by now probably well known; I do not want to revisit them here. If you want to read something intelligent and really brilliant and witty about this topic, I highly recommend you Jaron Lanier’s book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. Lanier is one of the few thinkers who deals with the consequences of the developments of modern media and information technologies, and his sharp rejection of the “for free” culture, which is spreading more and more, I share wholeheartedly. I do not want to review the book here, but whoever has a social media account should read this insightful and instructive book. After that, probably only a very few people will actually delete their social media accounts – Lanier himself does not have any illusions about that – but almost everyone who will read the book will be much more aware of what and where he posts something, and it will probably be much clearer to most people, how Facebook et al. are trying to manipulate every user in the interest of their paying clientele. Lanier’s ideas about how social media that work in the interest of their users, and not their paying customers, should look like are also worth to be discussed. Food for thought!

In addition to the serious objections regarding the business practices and privacy violations of Facebook and the structural defects of the platform itself, something else comes into play, which is also addressed by Lanier, something that every Facebook user has probably already experienced many times. It concerns the often very unpleasant and aggressive communication behavior of many FB users.

Everyone who’s on FB knows them: the narcissists who post almost exclusively selfies; the trolls who, with every contribution – whether it suits the topic or not – address their favorite pet theory and who would like to hijack every discussion even when it is not even remotely linked to the topic of the original posting; the racists, anti-Semites, xenophobes, homophobes, misogynists, conspiracy theorists, climate change deniers, Greta-bashers, sectarians, supporters of right-wing extremist parties, which I mercilessly delete from my circle of Facebook contacts, but who are apparently procreating like rabbits lately, so that you can hardly keep this plague in check. And what I also noticed time and time again: the way people address each other on Facebook, even and especially among people from whom one does not expect it per se (intellectuals), is frequently very uncultured, rude, insolent, insulting.

Over the last few months and years, I’ve been receiving threats to my physical integrity, including death threats, following some of my Facebook posts and comments. After my recent report about the revisionist activities of a Bulgarian writer, I received the most incredible insults – ad hominem attacks are by far the most common “argument” of many FB participants – and was the victim of a virtual pogrom of an apparently mentally disturbed woman, who despite being known as a pathological liar has apparently the ear of many of my Facebook friends. (It goes without saying that I only in very rare cases received any support even from close personal friends, when I was subject to such extreme cases of abuse and threats – so much for friendship!) And these are not just a few unique cases. If you only voice a single critical remark on a specific topic, you are immediately subject to abuse and unfair attacks even by people with a high formal education (including in some cases, writers and professors); even the friendly hint to a friend who asks where he can find a certain recording that is out of circulation is sufficient reason for a third party to jump in with snide remarks from the sideline.

I’m tired of all that. What I have to say to my friends, I will tell them in person in the future or through other, more private communication channels. And things that I would like to make public, I will post here on my blog. I will not delete my Facebook profile and maybe even occasionally share one or the other link or a few photos. But there will be no texts and comments from me on Facebook anymore in the future. No reason to be sad – in the contrary: I will have more time again to take care of more important things.

Jaron Lanier has no Social Media Accounts – but a cat! He is probably a happy person 

Jaron Lanier: Ten Arguments For Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now, Picador 2019

© Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki, 2014-9. 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 with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Two Books on the Ottoman/Turkish Heritage in Bulgaria

The territory of what is today the Republic of Bulgaria was for more than five centuries part of the Ottoman Empire and I think it is fair to say that the fight for liberation from what Bulgarians call either the “Ottoman Yoke“ or “Ottoman Slavery” is until today a defining moment for the identity of most ethnic Bulgarians.

Nations are, as Benedict Anderson puts it in his famous book, “Imagined Communities”. And the community called “Bulgarians” is defined not so much by historical events as they really took place, or by what certain historical figures (such as Vasil Levski or Hristo Botev) really did, and by what it meant in a strictly historical perspective, but more by the image Bulgarians have of these events and personages, the narrative that they learn in school or via the media. Hence the trend to mythologize the fight for liberation in the 19th century, hence the permanent exaggeration and distortion of certain historical facts, and the glossing over of others that don’t fit in the narrative that is generally accepted, but that is maybe not factually accurate. This is of course nothing specific to Bulgaria, it could be said for the national identity of all nation states: they are based on these kind of “constructs”. I have at least read a dozen Bulgarian novels, starting from Ivan Vazov’s “Under the Yoke”, to Anton Donchev’s famous (many say infamous) “Time of Parting”, to the remarkable more recent novel by Milen Ruskov “Uprising”, that deal in one way or the other with the liberation fight, or the relation of Bulgarians and Turks in the time of the Ottoman Empire. And the same can be said of Bulgarian Cinema: three of the biggest Box Office hits of the last years had exactly the same topic – the Bulgarian liberation fight in the 19th century.

But while these events that are formative to the Bulgarian identity seem to be part of the distant past, Bulgarians and Turks live still together in today’s Bulgaria. The material heritage of the Ottoman Empire, in the form of the remaining buildings from that time, as well as the people of Turkic origins (Turks, Gagauz, Tatars) that are living in comparatively peaceful coexistence with their ethnically Bulgarian neighbors in the country, are present, not past. When I say “comparatively peaceful” it means that there have been conflicts, especially in the time of communism when a ruthless policy of forced assimilation was introduced: Muslims (including Roma and Pomaks), as well as the non-Muslim Gagauz had to change their names, celebration of religious feasts was banned as well as the speaking of Turkish, and hundreds of thousands of Bulgarian citizens of Turkish origin were forced to leave Bulgaria and were stripped of their citizenship in 1989, just a few months before the (formal) end of communism rule in Bulgaria. A wave of terrorist acts (at least some of them perpetrated by the communist State Security) and self-immolations took place in the 1980’s, and while after the changes in the 1990’s these people were at least given back their citizenship and their own names, the relation between ethnic Bulgarians and Turks remains still strained and is frequently used by different political groups to incite ethnic unrest or even hatred.

As a country with great religious and ethnic diversity, Bulgaria should consider its material heritage from the Ottoman times as well as the diversity of people, ethnicities and religions that live in the country and are Bulgarian citizens as a treasure, not as a threat to some old-fashioned concept of nationalism.

For English-speaking readers I can heartily recommend two books that deal with the Turkish/Ottoman heritage of Bulgaria. A Guide to Ottoman Bulgaria by Dimana Trankova, Anthony Georgieff and Hristo Matanov (Vagabond Media 2012) takes the reader on a journey all over Bulgaria that leads to the mosques in Sofia, Samokov, Shumen, Plovdiv, Razgrad and Stara Zagora, but also to lesser known Ottoman buildings and traces in Gotse Delchev, Vidin, Ruse, Silistra, Belogradchik, Varna, Suvorovo and Uzundzhovo. A special chapter deals with Ottoman bridges (bridges similar to those described in Ivo Andric’s Bridge over the Drina or Ismail Kadare’s Three-Arched Bridge), and also with Ottoman fountains and abandoned mosques. The combination of highly knowledgeable text and beautiful photographs makes this book much more than another coffee table book. I am quite sure that most readers of this book will feel tempted to immediately undertake a tour to some of these buildings. The cover shows the so-called Devil’s Bridge at the Arda River in the Rhodopes.) Some photos from the book can be found here.

Turks of Bulgaria

While the previous book deals with the material heritage of the Ottomans, The Turks of Bulgaria (2012) is about the non-material heritage of the Ottomans in Bulgaria, the people and their history and culture. Chapters on history, including the forcible Bulgarisation campaigns against Turks already mentioned above; culture; folklore; religion; cuisine; music and dance; language. There is a detailed chapter on Pomaks (Bulgarophone Muslims) and Gagauz (Christian Turks), and the book is like the first one richly illustrated.

Vagabond Media is doing a terrific job in documenting the immense cultural heritage of Bulgaria in beautiful editions that combine high-quality photography with excellent essays that guide the reader. Titles like “A Guide to Jewish Bulgaria”, “The Bulgarians” (a book that I reviewed some time ago here), “A Guide to Thracian Bulgaria”, or “A Guide to Communist Bulgaria” , to mention just a few, make people aware what an incredible cultural richness Bulgaria represents, but they also document buildings that are frequently endangered and in disrepair. And in some cases, like with many of the buildings from Communist Bulgaria, it is rather obvious that in a few years’ time, all that will remain from them will be photos and books.

In any case, the books of Vagabond Media (and the high-end journal Vagabond too) are an excellent source for anyone with an interest in Bulgarian culture and architectural heritage. 

This review was first published at Global Literature in Libraries Initiative, 12 June, 2018 for #BulgarianLiteratureMonth.

© Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki, 2014-8. 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 with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

John Atanasoff – The Electronic Prometheus

John Vincent Atanasoff (1903-1995) was an important American computer pioneer; his father was born in Bulgaria and came to the United States as a young boy. Due to his Bulgarian origin and some factors about which I will speak in this review, Atanasoff had a special relationship to the home country of his father, where he is held in high esteem – sometimes enthusiastically, but factually incorrect referred to as “the Bulgarian who invented the computer”.

The book John Atanasoff – The Electronic Prometheus by Blagovest Sendov (St. Kliment Ohridski University Press, Sofia 2003, translated by Maya Pencheva and Todor Shopov) is focusing on the “Bulgarian connection” of Atanasoff; while it is not a biography, it makes for the first time many documents and private letters of Atanasoff available, mainly the correspondence with the author of the book, a Bulgarian mathematician and computer scientist. In the last part, the book publishes Atanasoff’s own paper Advent of electronic digital computing, an account of his personal development and achievements as an engineer and scientist, a report that documents in detail not only the fascinating story of the ABC (Atanasoff-Berry Computer), but also the extremely long and difficult patent litigation that followed and that ended with an almost complete success for Atanasoff.

Atanasoff was a professor of physics and mathematics at the Iowa State College in the 1930’s, and one of his scientific interests was the solution of complex systems of up to 30 linear equations. Since these complicated systems of equations couldn’t be resolved in acceptable time by humans, and the existing calculators were also not able to process such complicated operations, it became clear to Atanasoff that he had to build a fast calculator himself if he wanted to get the job done. Together with Clifford Berry, a very talented graduate student, he worked in his free time on the development of such an engine. The two breakthroughs on the way to finally make the ABC operational were the decision to use binary code (with 2 instead of 10 as a base of the number system used), and to introduce electronic tubes instead of mechanic or electro-technical solutions.

Atanasoff started his work on the computer in 1937, first alone and later with Berry; in 1942, the ABC was operational. (Konrad Zuse’s Z3, a digital computer also on binary, but on electro-technical basis was already operational in 1941, more than one year before the ABC – a fact that was unknown to Atanasoff and Berry. Zuse’s computer was – contrary to the ABC – also Turing-complete. Strangely, Zuse is mentioned only once in Sendov’s book: “During WWII Conrad(sic!) Zuse built in Germany a computer too perfect for its time, which used switches.”)

In the period when Atanasoff and Berry were working on the ABC, a young professional, John Mauchley, got in touch with them; Atanasoff and Berry shared the basic concepts and the blueprints of the ABC with him during a visit of Mauchley that lasted several days; later it turned out that Mauchley used the design of the ABC as a basis of a computer he would build together with John Eckert: the ENIAC. In the patent documents they submitted, there was no mentioning of the fact that the basic concepts of ENIAC were indeed Atanasoff’s (and Berry’s), and not those of Mauchley and Eckert.

Atanasoff was for a long time unaware of this patent fraud, but an IBM patent expert visited him in the 1954 and promised him “If you will help us, we will break the Mauchley-Eckert computer patent; it was derived from you.” Considering his previous bad experience with IBM, Atanasoff declined, but in 1967 Sperry Rand Corporation started a law suit regarding the ENIAC patents, followed by a second one in 1971 (Honeywell vs. Sperry Rand). In both cases, Atanasoff – Berry had allegedly committed suicide, although the circumstances were somehow fishy – and his counterparts were heard as witnesses over extended periods. In 1973, a federal court in Minneapolis ruled that indeed the patent on ENIAC was void and that Atanasoff and Berry had built the first digital electronic computer and that the patented idea was Atanasoff’s.

In 1970, when Atanasoff’s role in the development of the modern digital computer was not widely known even in the scientific community, he was contacted by Sendov, then a professor at Sofia University. What started as a rather formal correspondence between colleagues who share similar research interests, grew into a close personal exchange that included several meetings in the United States and also two visits of Atanasoff in Bulgaria.

For Atanasoff, it must have been an emotionally extremely touching and uplifting experience that his achievements were not only recognized by his Bulgarian colleagues – he was even made a member of the Bulgarian Academy of Science, a rather rare achievement for a scientist from a capitalist country, who had on top of it a long track record in working in the development of the nuclear and conventional arms industry of the United States. Particularly his 1970 visit in his father’s home village Boyajik near Yambol (his grandfather had been killed by the Turks in 1876), the Bulgarian hospitality, the opportunity to connect with his unknown relatives and an old colleague from his time as a student, the personal friendship he made with Sendov and a few other scientists not only from the field of computer science – it is all reflected in the later very warm and personal correspondence of Atanasoff.

The engineer and scientist comes across in this correspondence as a good-natured, friendly and open man with a variety of interests that included beside his family such different fields as agriculture – he grew his own fruits and vegetables, something for which he “blamed” his Bulgarian heritage – or the plan for the development of a new universal phonetic alphabet, an issue he liked to discuss with a Bulgarian linguist as well. His Bulgarian friends even lobbied in Stockholm for him, when he was proposed as a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Physics, and Todor Zhivkov, the Head of State and Chairman of the Communist Party of Bulgaria wrote a support letter to get him the Marconi International Fellowship (both applications failed). The decades of battle in and out of court regarding the recognition of his and Berry’s invention in the United States were probably very disappointing for Atanasoff, and that the country of his father offered recognition, support and friendship meant for sure a lot to him.

I was of course wondering, if Atanasoff and Sendov had maybe second thoughts when they started their personal acquaintance that lead to such a close friendship, including also the families of both men. After all, it was the time of the Cold War, and it is difficult to imagine that the two of them moved completely out of the orbit of the intelligence services of both countries, for whom these meetings must have been extremely interesting. Therefore I wouldn’t be too surprised if one day documents related to that question would emerge from some archive. And I also wouldn’t be too surprised if the “Atanasoff story” would make it sooner or later into a Hollywood movie: it has all the ingredients a successful film needs.

Fazit: Atanasoff was a colorful person with a strong Bulgarian connection. Sendov’s book is the ultimate work on this topic (so far). Atanasoff was a very important computer pioneer, but not the inventor of the computer.

Blagovest Sendov: John Atanasoff – The Electronic Prometheus, St. Kliment Ohridski University Press, Sofia 2003, translated by Maya Pencheva and Todor Shopov

This review was first published at Global Literature in Libraries Initiative, 05 June, 2018 for #BulgarianLiteratureMonth.

© Thomas Hübner and Mytwostotinki, 2014-8. 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 with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

News from #BulgarianLiteratureMonth

After the first third of Bulgarian Literature Month at the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative – editor/curator is yours truly -, I can say that it is a lot of work, but also a lot of fun. The correspondence with and reactions of contributors, readers, and even authors are so far very encouraging.

Here an overview regarding the published blog posts until now:

Bulgarian Literature Month – a short introduction
Promoting Bulgarian Literature in the Anglosphere: Interview with Milena Deleva, Managing Director of the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation
The Satire of Alek Popov (by Ellis Shuman)
Georgi Gospodinov’s Natural Novel (by Scott Bailey)
Albena Stambolova’s Everything Happens As It Does (by Jean Ping)
Blagovest Sendov: John Atanasoff – The Electronic Prometheus
“Our bitter beloved borderless Balkans”: Kapka Kassabova’s Border (by Dorian Stuber)
Bulgarian Poetry in English Translation: Anthologies – an overview 
Bulgarian Poetry in English Translation (II): the pre-1944 period
Bulgarian Poetry in English Translation (III/1): the period 1944-1989 – Konstantin Pavlov
Marina Konstantinova: The White Coast

Several of the blog posts have been re-blogged, shared or re-tweeted, some of our reviewers also spread the word, and this little piece by Scott Bailey made me smile (especially the headline of the article).

I am expecting some extremely interesting contributions in the upcoming days. Check it out and spread the word about #BulgarianLiteratureMonth – thank you!

© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014-8. 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.

Bulgarian Literature Month: title pick and giveaways

As I have mentioned earlier, the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative is organizing a Bulgarian Literature Month in June, and I will be the editor of this event.

In the meantime, I have already commissioned quite a number of reviews and will also post one or two things myself. However, there are still a number of books that could be included, provided I find a reviewer (preferably a book blogger or someone else who is doing bookish things).

Here is a short list of books which – if you belong to the category mentioned above – are open still for reviewing during Bulgarian Literature Month:

Classics:

Ivan Vazov: Under the Yoke – the first Bulgarian novel, and until today read in school
Aleko Konstantinov: Bay Ganyo – not all Bulgarian love this book, because it is satirically exposing certain elements of the Bulgarian national character (just like not all Czechs love Schwejk!)

A modern classic:

Ivailo Petrov: Wolf Hunt –  

Contemporary Bulgarian literature:

Virginia Zaharieva: 9 Rabbits
Albena Stambolova: Everything Happens As It Does
Angel Igov: A Short Tale of Shame
Zahary Karabashliev: 18% Gray
Hristo Karastoyanov: The Same Night Awaits Us All
Georgi Gospodinov: Natural Novel
Deyan Enev: Circus Bulgaria
Angel Wagenstein: Farewell, Shanghai

Bulgarian-born authors that write in another language:

Miroslav Penkov: East of the West
Miroslav Penkov: Stork Mountain
Kapka Kassabova: Street without a Name
Ilija Troyanow: Collector of the Worlds
Elias Canetti: The Tongue Set Free

Fiction by foreign authors but with a Bulgarian setting:

Will Buckingham: The Descent of the Lyre
Rana Dasgupta: Solo
Garth Greenwell: What Belongs to You
Elizabeth Kostova: The Shadow Land
Julian Barnes: The Porcupine

Non-fiction:

Dimana Trankova / Anthony Georgieff: A Guide to Jewish Bulgaria
Dimana Trankova / Anthony Georgieff: A Guide to Communist Bulgaria
Tzvetan Todorov: The Fragility of Goodness
Mary C. Neuburger: Balkan Smoke
Clive Leviev-Sawyer: Bulgaria: Politics and Protests in the 21st Century
 
The reviews need to be unpublished and preferably in English. Let me know if you are interested in reviewing a book on this list.

I have also a few giveaways. Those will be given preferably to those who commit themselves to write a review of the above mentioned titles. If you are interested in a giveaway (it should be reviewed too for Bulgarian Literature Month), please let me know until 29 April. If several people are interested in a giveaway, I will draw lots.

The giveaways:

Milen Ruskov: Thrown Into Nature – a novel by one of Bulgaria’s most acclaimed contemporary writers
 
Kerana Angelova: Elada Pinyo and Time – “The novel describes the myth of the person who travels through various wombs and embraces, undergoes multiple transformations due to the culture of times, yet never stops expressing the deep faith that above our earthly trials watches the law of love.”
 
Randall Baker: Bulgariana – diary of one of the founders of New Bulgarian University in Sofia; a fun read that gives a deep and sympathetic insight into the Bulgaria of the 21st Century
 
Nikolai Grozni: Claustrophobias – an autobiographical novel of an author that was a wunderkind pianist and a monk in an ashram in India, and a lot of other things
 
Ivailo Petrov: Before I was born – story collection of one of the most important post-WW II authors from Bulgaria (the book is antiquarian, but in very good condition)
 
Hristo Hristov: Kill the Wanderer – Hristov, an investigative journalist, describes the life and the assassination of Georgi Markov, a Bulgarian author and journalist, in London. Considering the recent news about Julia Kristeva, who was exposed as a collaborator of the Bulgarian State Security, it is important to not forget what this institution did to enemies of the system.
 
And now, let me know which book you want to review, and in which giveaway you are interested. (The winners will be informed individually and by a post here on 30 April.) 

© Thomas Hübner and mytwostotinki.com, 2014-8. 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.

 


Playing the Moldovans at Tennis

Since I am right now living and working in the Republic of Moldova, it will come probably not as a surprise to you, dear readers, when I am trying to get my hands on any books written by Moldovan authors that are translated in a language that I am able to read. There are indeed a few quite interesting authors whose translated books I will feature here in the future. 

Today I am writing a few lines about a rather humorous book by the British comedian Tony Hawks: Playing the Moldovans at Tennis. At the beginning is an eccentric wager: Tony is betting with a friend (after they watched the Moldovan football team in TV losing against England) that he can beat every member of the Moldovan National team in tennis. (It should be mentioned that a short time before his Moldovan adventure he won a bet that included his traveling around Ireland – with a fridge!)

“All I knew about Moldova was the names of eleven men printed on the inside back page of my newspaper. None of them sounded to me sounded like they were any good at tennis…” 

So, the bizarre quest is simply: tracking down the country’s football team, challenging them one by one to play tennis with him – and win! (Maybe I should mention that the loser of the bet is supposed to sing the Moldovan National anthem on a crowded street in London – with his pants down…) 

What follows is the hilarious report of Tony’s adventures mainly in Moldova, with a visit in Northern Ireland (where the football team has a match that would give Tony the opportunity to challenge some players he hadn’t met yet.) and an exciting trip to Nazareth where things seem to go wrong for Tony… 

The guiding principle of the book, the tracking down of eleven football players reminded me of course a bit of The Twelve Chairs. There is plenty of action, unexpected turns of fate, meetings with the Moldovan underworld, gypsies, and every day challenges such as power cuts, huge manholes in the almost unlit streets of the capital Chisinau, adventures in the public transport, but also encounters with plenty of helpful people, especially his guest family with which Tony created a bond of friendship for life. 

A good part of the humour of the book is based on the clash of culture between an over-optimistic Englishman and a local population who seem to be a bit reserved and not particularly surprised about Tony’s plan. In a country where almost everyone is focused on surviving the next day, that is probably not surprising. (The book was published in 2000, but things have not changed a lot and Moldova is still the poorest country in Europe.) 

Usually, I am a bit reserved regarding the genre “Humorous Travel Books”. Too frequently, the humour in the book is of a condescending and disrespectful nature; the content of this kind of books can be described as “Foreigner from a wealthy Western country travels to a poor country about which he doesn’t know anything and doesn’t want to learn anything, with the sole purpose to poke fun at the hapless and primitive natives, in order to entertain other prejudiced and obnoxious foreigners from wealthy Western countries.” The travel prose of AA Gill and some other hacks belongs to that category. I don’t like that at all.

Fortunately, Tony Hawks is a different kind of person. His humour is self-depreciating, and he is genuinely interested in getting to know and understand the Moldovans. He is even questioning if he is doing the right thing with his bizarre adventure, which seems to him rather frivolous as time is passing, considering the living conditions of everyone around him. 

Of course I am not telling you here if Tony was successful and was really able to beat all players. You have to read it by yourself, and I can assure you, it is a very entertaining book. And since there not many books about Moldova, it is still a must-read for anyone who travels there. 

50% of the royalties of this book go into a fund that supports a local children’s health centre in Chisinau, the Tony Hawks Centre. Tony is still traveling regularly to Moldova and is doing additional fundraising for the good cause. If you want to learn more about the Tony Hawks Centre, or about Voinicel, another NGO in Chisinau that supports children with special needs and their parents, visit their respective websites. And maybe you consider also if you can make a donation – it is for a good cause! 

Tony Hawks: Playing the Moldovans at Tennis, Ebury Press 2007 

© 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.

Again Women in Translation Month

Incredible how fast one year has passed – another Women in Translation Month!

My modest contribution to Women in Translation Month is an overview regarding the books by female authors (or co-authors) I have reviewed, mentioned or from which I have translated texts (poetry) that I have published on this blog since last years’ Women in Translation Month:

Bozhana Apostolowa: Kreuzung ohne Wege
Boika Asiowa: Die unfruchtbare Witwe
Martina Baleva / Ulf Brunnbauer (Hg.): Batak kato mjasto na pametta / Batak als bulgarischer Erinnerungsort
Veza Canetti / Elias Canetti / Georges Canetti: “Dearest Georg!”
Veza Canetti: The Tortoises
Lea Cohen: Das Calderon-Imperium
Blaga Dimitrova: Forbidden Sea – Zabraneno more
Blaga Dimitrova: Scars
Kristin Dimitrova: A Visit to the Clockmaker
Kristin Dimitrova: Sabazios
Iglika Dionisieva: Déjà vu Hug
Tzvetanka Elenkova (ed.): At the End of the World
Tzvetanka Elenkova: The Seventh Gesture
Ludmila Filipova: The Parchment Maze
Sabine Fischer / Michael Davidis: Aus dem Hausrat eines Hofrats
Heike Gfereis: Autopsie Schiller
Mirela Ivanova: Versöhnung mit der Kälte
Ekaterina Josifova: Ratse
Kapka Kassabova: Street Without a Name
Gertrud Kolmar: A Jewish Mother from Berlin – Susanna
Gertrud Kolmar: Dark Soliloquy
Gertrud Kolmar: Das lyrische Werk
Gertrud Kolmar: My Gaze Is Turned Inward: Letters 1938-1943
Gertrud Kolmar: Worlds – Welten
Harper Lee: To Kill a Mockingbird
Sibylle Lewitscharoff: Apostoloff
Nada Mirkov-Bogdanovic / Milena Dordijevic: Serbian Literature in the First World War
Mary C. Neuburger: Balkan Smoke
Milena G. Nikolova: Kotkata na Schroedinger
Nicki Pawlow: Der bulgarische Arzt
Sabine Rewald: Balthus: Cats and Girls
Angelika Schrobsdorff: Die Reise nach Sofia
Angelika Schrobsdorff: Grandhotel Bulgaria
Tzveta Sofronieva: Gefangen im Licht
Albena Stambolova: Everything Happens as it Does
Maria Stankowa: Langeweile
Danila Stoianova: Memory of a Dream
Katerina Stoykova-Klemer (ed.): The Season of Delicate Hunger
Kathrine Kressmann Taylor: Address Unknown
Dimana Trankova / Anthony Georgieff: A Guide to Jewish Bulgaria
Marguerite Youcenar: Coup de Grâce
Edda Ziegler / Michael Davidis: “Theuerste Schwester“. Christophine Reinwald, geb. Schiller
Rumjana Zacharieva: Transitvisum fürs Leben
Virginia Zaharieva: Nine Rabbits
Anna Zlatkova: fremde geografien
The Memoirs of Glückel from Hameln

What remarkable translated books by women have you read recently or are you reading right now?

 © 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.

 


Bulgarian Literature Month 2016 – a few suggestions (2)

In my latest blog post, I gave an overview regarding some of the translated Bulgarian authors and their works. If you want to have a bit more background information about contemporary authors from Bulgaria, I would recommend you to have a look at the website Contemporary Bulgarian Writers.

The Elizabeth Kostova Foundation is since years successfully supporting particularly the translation and publication of books by contemporary Bulgarian authors, and the website is also a result of their work. Apart from short authors’ bios, there are plenty of translation samples that will for sure be a useful starting point not only for publishers, but also for readers. The English-language Bulgarian journal Vagabond (a well-written and edited periodical for anyone with an interest in Bulgaria) publishes in every new edition a story or a chapter of a novel by a contemporary Bulgarian author. So there are now quite a lot of accessible media that can tease the curiosity of readers for Bulgarian literature.

Although the main focus of this first Bulgarian Literature Month 2016 is on the works of contemporary Bulgarian language authors, I want to be not too strict. Also non-fiction works by Bulgarian authors can be included. The same goes for works by Bulgarian-born authors that write in another language than Bulgarian. I am even open for reviews of books (fiction or non-fiction) by foreign language authors that are related to Bulgaria.

Here are a few recommendations for all above mentioned categories:

Bulgarian-born authors that write in other languages:

The only Bulgarian-born author that was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature was Elias Canetti. Canetti’s only link with Bulgaria is his birth in Ruse and the first years of his early childhood he spent there, and which had nevertheless a strong lifelong impact on him. More on his childhood in the first volume of his brilliant autobiography:

The Tongue Set Free (Granta Books 2011)

Some time ago, I reviewed the debut of Miroslav Penkov, his story collection East of the West, enthusiastically. The English-language author Penkov has now published his first novel, again focused on Bulgaria and similarly enticing:

Stork Mountain (Farrar, Straus , and Giroux 2016)

Kapka Kassabova, another English-language author with Bulgarian roots, left the country of her birth in 1991. Many years later, she came back for a longer visit and her impressions there brought back a lot of mostly not very pleasant memories. A somewhat controversial book, not liked by everyone in Bulgaria, but definitely an interesting read about the difficult process of transition which is still going on 25 years after the fall of communism:

Street Without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria (Skyhorse Publishing 2009)

One of the most prolific contemporary German-language authors is Ilija Trojanow (sometimes transcribed as Iliya Troyanov in English). Of his so far translated works I recommend particularly the following books:

Along the Ganges (Haus Publishing 2005)
Mumbai to Mecca (Haus Publishing 2007)
The Collector of Worlds (Haus Publishing 2008)
The Lamentations of Zeno (Verso 2016)

Together with the photographer Christian Muhrbeck, Trojanow published an impressive book with photos from Bulgaria:

Wo Orpheus begraben liegt (Carl Hanser 2013) – this book, as all other works of Trojanow related to Bulgaria, are still not translated in English

Unfortunately Dimitre Dinev’s books, written in German, are so far also not translated in English. His touching and brilliantly written novel about two families is one of my favourite books:

Engelszungen (“Angel’s Tongues”) (Deuticke 2003)

Several other Bulgarian-born authors write also in German. I can recommend (this so far untranslated book) particularly:

Rumjana Zacharieva: Transitvisum fürs Leben (Horlemann 2012)

Bulgaria is also a topic in the work of a few fictional works by authors that have no connection by birth with this country:

Many of Eric Ambler’s books have a story that is located in some frequently not precisely named Balkan country. The following two books of this fantastic author have a Bulgarian setting (the first one partly, the second one is clearly based on the show trial in Bulgaria in the aftermath of the Communist takeover):

The Mask of Dimitrios (in the United States published as A Coffin for Dimitrios) (various editions)
Judgment on Deltchev (Vintage 2002)

Another author who is using the twilight of the Balkans as a setting for his spy novels is Alan Furst. Bulgaria features for example in the following book:

Night Soldiers (Random House 2002)

Two remarkable novels by younger international authors who spent a longer time in Bulgaria and who received excellent reviews (especially the second one, which was published recently has caused really raving write-ups in all major literary journals and even the mainstream media):

Rana Dasgupta: Solo (Marriner Books 2012)
Garth Greenwell: What Belongs to You (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux 2016)

Julian Barnes visited Bulgaria after the transition and witnessed the trial of Todor Zhivkov. His novel based on this experience is worth reading:

The Porcupine (Vintage 2009)

Two historical novels by men who lived or live in Bulgaria. I haven’t read them yet, but the synopsis sounds interesting in both cases:

Christopher Buxton: Far from the Danube (Kronos 2006)
Ellis Shuman: Valley of the Thracians (Create Space 2013)

A few more books by German authors that have a Bulgarian setting and that I enjoyed (with the exception of Apostoloff, but maybe you think otherwise). Only the book by Lewitscharoff is translated so far.

Michael Buselmeier: Hundezeiten (Wunderhorn 1999)
Nicki Pawlow: Der bulgarische Arzt (Langen-Müller 2014)
Roumen M. Evert: Die Immigrantin (Dittrich 2009)
Uwe Kolbe: Thrakische Spiele (Nymphenburger 2005)
Sibylle Lewitscharoff: Apostoloff (Suhrkamp 2010)

Angelika Schrobsdorff (also known as an actress and wife of Claude Lanzmann) came 1938 to Bulgaria as a Jewish child from Germany and stayed there until 1947. Several of her works are based on her experience in Bulgaria or on her attempts to re-connect with friends and relatives at a later stage:

Die Reise nach Sofia (dtv 1983, introduction by Simone de Beauvoir)
Grandhotel Bulgaria (dtv 1997)

And finally some non-fiction recommendations:

The Bulgarian journalist and author Georgi Markov was one of the most prominent dissidents and victim of a so-called “umbrella murder”. The following book is the result of years of investigation and gives an extremely interesting insight into the real power central of communist Bulgaria, the State Security:

Hristo Hristov: Kill the Wanderer (Gutenberg 2013)

Works of Georgi Markov is available in a three-volume edition in German:

Das Portrait meines Doppelgängers (Wieser 2010)
Die Frauen von Warschau (Wieser 2010)
Reportagen aus der Ferne (Wieser 2014)

In the context of the attempts of certain right-wing circles in Bulgaria to whitewash the fascist regime of Boris III from its share of responsibility in the holocaust, it is particularly useful to read the following book by Tzvetan Todorov, who is together with Julia Kristeva one of the most prominent French intellectuals of Bulgarian origin:

The Fragility of Goodness (Princeton University Press 2003)

Another very heated discussion about a particular period of Bulgarian history  was the so-called Batak controversy a few years ago. Whereas in most other countries a conference about certain aspects of 19th century history would go unnoticed outside a small circle, it resulted in this case in big and very unpleasant smear campaign with involvement of Bulgarian politicians and almost all major media in the country who, either without knowing the publication or in full disregard of the content, organized a real witch hunt against a few scholars that had in the end to cancel the conference because they had to fear for their lives. The re-evaluation of certain historical myths that were in the past used to incite ethnic or religious hatred targeted at certain groups of Bulgarian citizens is still a difficult issue. A book that is documenting the Batak controversy and the historical facts behind it is available in a Bulgarian/German edition:

Martina Baleva, Ulf Brunnbauer (Hgg.): Batak kato mjasto na pametta / Batak als bulgarischer Erinnerungsort (Iztok-Zapad 2007)

A book on the history of Bulgaria may be useful for all those who dive into Bulgarian literature. Bulgarians love their history and love to discuss it with foreigners; or more precisely: the version of history they were taught in school…

R.J. Crampton: A Concise History of Bulgaria (Cambridge University Press 2006)

A fascinating book on how tobacco, its cultivation and production, shaped Bulgaria – until today, when there is still a political party that at least on the the surface mainly represents the interest of the – predominantly ethnic Turkish – tobacco farmers:

Mary C. Neuburger: Balkan Smoke (Cornell University Press 2012)

A German in Bulgaria is the subtitle of the following book, and of course I read the very interesting, insightful and sometimes funny work by Thomas Frahm (not translated in English, but at least in Bulgarian) with great interest and pleasure. Frahm is also one of the few excellent translators of Bulgarian literature (Lea Cohen, Vladimir Zarev):

Die beiden Hälften der Walnuss (Chira 2015)

And if you are planning a walk through the Balkans or a boat trip on the Danube, the following classical works should not be missing in your luggage:

Claudio Magris: Danube (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux 2008)

Patrick Leigh Fermor: A Time of Gifts/Between the Woods and the Water/The Broken Road (NYRB)

In my next blog post I will give more information on how to participate in Bulgarian Literature Month 2016. And yes, there will be also a few giveaways! 

PS: The information in the two blog posts is of course not complete, and can never be. Still, I think I should include the following as well (which I have simply forgotten):

John Updike: The Bulgarian Poetess – one of Updike’s best stories, available in several of his short story collections, for example in The Early Stories, 1953-1975 (Random House 2004)

Will Buckingham: The Descent of the Lyre (Roman Books 2013) – a beautiful novel that catches the magical atmosphere of the Rhodopi mountains, the region of Orpheus, written by an author who knows Bulgaria, its history and culture very well.

Dumitru Tsepeneag: The Bulgarian Truck – a brilliant postmodernist novel by an author from neighbouring Romania (Dalkey Archive Press 2016)

The online journal Drunken Boat recently published an issue devoted to Bulgarian literature and art. A good selection and the perfect starting point for the Bulgarian Literature Month.

© 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.

 

 

 


100 Grams of Vodka

100 Gramm Wodka: a book about a three-month trip through Russia and Kazakhstan, written by Fredy Gareis, a German journalist who was born in Almaty (then Alma-Ata) but who emigrated with his family to Germany, the home country of his ancestors when he was still a toddler.

As a child, Fredy Gareis was not particularly interested in the stories and discussions about the past of the family in the Soviet Union. That his mother obviously wanted to completely wipe out any memories of her past didn’t help little Fredy to understand where he really came from and what was the story behind those long kitchen meetings with relatives that were a part of his childhood in Germany. But while growing older and becoming a journalist, the wish to get to know more about the country in which he was born (now divided into several independent states, then the Soviet Union) and to reconnect himself with his and his family’s past became stronger.

The passing on of several older relatives within a short period, and the feeling to have missed a chance to learn more from them finally triggered an urgent wish to visit Russia and Kazakhstan, partly to see how life is now in this vast region, but mainly driven by the wish to see the places in Kazakhstan and Siberia where his family came from and suffered in the Stalin era and thereafter as descendants of those Germans who came to Russia and the Ukraine after Catherine the Great had invited her fellow countrymen to settle there. Once held in great esteem for their industriousness, with their own Autonomous Soviet Republic at the Volga, WWII was the big catastrophe for this community that catapulted those who survived it to Siberia or the Central Asian Republics, frequently as slave labourers in the GULag.

100 Gramm Wodka is an interesting book which contains insightful travel notes and also reports about many meetings with different people from a big variety of geographic and social origins, and therefore a kind of mosaic of this part of the world. A deep dive into the history of the Russian Germans who were considered as Germans in Russia, and who are now – after the biggest part of them has re-emigrated to the homeland of their ancestors – considered to be Russians by their fellow countrymen in Germany; it seems to be their fate to never really belong to the community within which they live and to be always considered as outsiders. A road and railroad trip past thousands of kilometers of steppe, heading to Magadan and Vladivostok at the Pacific – and a love declaration to the incredible people that live in this region. But how on earth could the author possibly survive all this Vodka that the hospitable local people offered him together with huge amounts of food on all kind of occasions?

A translation of this excellent piece of travel journalism is recommended. After reading it, the probability is very high that you will plan to go on a visit there. And if you are more of an armchair traveller, you will still enjoy this trip from Saint Petersburg to Moscow, Lake Baikal, Kazakhstan, the Raspberry Lake, and the wide expanse of Siberia, a terra incognita even for most Russians.

Fredy Gareis: 100 Gramm Wodka, Malik 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.