Bulgarian Literature as World Literature examines key aspects and manifestations of 20th- and 21st-century Bulgarian literature by way of the global literary landscape. The first volume to bring together in English the perspectives of prominent writers, translators, and scholars of Bulgarian literature and culture, this long-overdue collection identifies correlations between national and world aesthetic ideologies and literary traditions.
It situates Bulgarian literature within an array of contexts and foregrounds a complex interplay of changing internal and external forces. These forces shaped not only the first collaborative efforts at the turn of the 20th century to insert Bulgarian literature into the world's literary repository but also the work of contemporary Bulgarian diaspora authors. Mapping histories, geographies, economies, and genetics, the contributors assess the magnitudes and directions of such forces in order to articulate how a distinctly national, "minor" literature--produced for internal use and nearly invisible globally until the last decade--transforms into world literature today.
Author(s): Mihaela P. Harper (editor), Dimitar Kambourov (editor)
Series: (Literatures as World Literature)
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Year: 2020
Language: English
Pages: 304
Tags: Bulgarian Literature, World Literature
Cover
Contents
Foreword Bulgaria and Its Worlding: A Historical Perspective Maria Todorova
Acknowledgments
Introduction Modern Bulgarian Literature: Being in the World Mihaela P. Harper and Dimitar Kambourov
Part I Histories: In Search of a National Profile of World Literature
1 Medieval Bulgarian Literature as World Literature Diana Atanassova
2 Bulgarian Literature in a “Romaic” Context Raymond Detrez
3 The Bulgarian Literary Space and Its Languages: Monolingual Canon,
Plural Writings Marie Vrinat-Nikolov
4 Post-Liberation Literary Quests: From National Nostalgia to
Social Anger and Modernist Dreams Milena Kirova
5 Does Bulgarian Literature Have a Place within World Literature?
Amelia Licheva
Part II Geographies: Bulgarian Literature as Un/common Ground within and without
6 Europeanization or Lunacy: The Idea of World Literature and the
Autonomization of the Bulgarian Literary Field Boyko Penchev
7 Anthology Anxieties: Maturity and Mystification Bilyana Kourtasheva
8 Anomaly and Distext in Bulgarian Literature: Kiril Krastev
Vassil Vidinsky, Maria Kalinova, and Kamelia Spassova
9 Telling History in Many Ways: The Recent Past as Literary Plot
Ani Burova
10 Between the Local and the Global: Aporia in Miroslav Penkov’s
East of the West Mihaela P. Harper
11 Bulgarian Literature: Beyond World Literature into Global
Literature Emiliya Dvoryanova
Part III Economies: Bulgarian Literature and the Global Market
12 Tame Domesticity and Timid Trespasses: Travels and Exoduses
Todor Hristov
13 The End of Self-Colonization: Contemporary Bulgarian Literature
and Its Global Condition Alexander Kiossev
14 Bulgarians Writing Abroad: Import and (Re)export of the
Outsourced Production Dimitar Kambourov
15 In Between and Beyond: Diaspora Writers and Readers Yana Hashamova
16 Factotum and Fakir: The Translator of Bulgarian Literature into
English Angela Rodel
Part IV Genetics: Bulgarian Literature’s Heredities, Affinities, and Prospects
17 Bulgarian Literature’s Localism and (Im)mobility Darin Tenev
18 1963, 2016: Two Perspectives on Blaga Dimitrova Julia Kristeva
19 Bulgarian Women’s Literature: Plots and Stories Miglena Nikolchina
20 Writing from the Saddest Place in the World Georgi Gospodinov
21 Bulgarian Liveliness Jean-Luc Nancy
22 Haide: On a Life that Feels Itself Live (A Response to Jean-Luc Nancy’s
“Bulgarian Liveliness”) Cory Stockwell
Afterword Beyond “Minor Literatures”: Reflections on World Literature
(and on Bulgarian) Galin Tihanov
Select Bibliography
Contributors
Index
