Bulgarian Literature as World Literature

Description

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.

Mihaela P. Harper is Assistant Professor in the Cultures, Civilizations and Ideas Program at Bilkent University, Turkey. Dimitar Kambourov is Associate Professor in the Literary Theory Division of the Slavonic Studies Department at Sofia University, Bulgaria, and Lector of Bulgarian Language, Literature and Culture at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland.

This volume is truly a groundbreaking effort that illuminates the often overlooked, but truly multilingual and multicultural nature of Bulgarian literature. Experts, readers with basic knowledge of Bulgarian literature, and those interested in world literature, alike, will benefit from the book, as the diverse contributions gathered here offer a comprehensive overview of the varied approaches necessary to define and evaluate objectively the Bulgarian literary landscape, both at present, in relation to the global literary network, and in its wider historical context. * Maria Hristova, Assistant Professor of Russian and Russian Section Head, Lewis & Clark College, USA * This rich, multifaceted palette of refined, thought-provoking essays interrogates a plethora of concepts--from the literary histories of monolingual national literatures as cannon and anthology, to minor literatures in center-periphery relations, to the cosmopolitan turn of world literature, and finally to the commodification of difference--while at the same time illuminating, with erudite scholarly attention, Bulgarian literature as and in the dynamic processes of multilingual re-interpretation, translation, cross-germination. It will nourish the curiosity of specialists and generalists alike. * Angelina Ilieva, Instructional Professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures, University of Chicago, USA * How can one write world literature from 'the saddest place in the world'? The essays in Mihaela P. Harper's and Dimitar Kambourov's collection Bulgarian Literature as World Literature provide provocative, sometimes astounding, answers, challenging debates about world literature from cutting edge positions in critical theories today. Reaching back to the Byzantine and Ottoman periods, Bulgarian literatures' long history informs the volume's focus on contemporary literatures, including authors from the Bulgarian diaspora who live in a language not their own. The rich array of topics includes literature, nation building, and transnationality; gendered forms of (non-)belonging; economies, global markets, and alternative canons; the anxiety of influence and self-colonization; experimentalism and intertextuality, as well as translation and multilingual writing. With exemplary mindfulness of singularity, the authors demonstrate how so-called minor literatures challenge major literatures from within, ultimately making the distinction obsolete. * Gabriele Schwab, Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature, University of California, Irvine, USA *