Day 30: Bulgarian Literature

This picture is from Boyana Church. I was unable to take pictures in the church, but received some pictures from Boyan Dobrev, who I met yesterday, and wanted to share with you. If you look back at my previous post on Boyana you will learn more about this church.

Anyway, todays post is dedicated to Bulgarian Literature, which was what our lectures were devoted on today. We also were fortunate enough to meet two prominent Bulgarian writers: Kristin Dimitrova and Alek Popov.

To begin with, the Bulgarian literature scene is quite different than the American one. In America there is a huge market for books: book shops now have cafes and people tend to flock to them to relax and read. In Bulgaria there is a very narrow market for literature and writers are not able to support themselves just by being writers.

Because of the political transformations happening in this country in the past twenty years, literature has also transformed. The 1990s was the most difficult time period for literature because of the new opening of freedom, but the lack of an audience. Writers began to write about things that had been forbidden during Communism, such as condemning Communism, sexual promiscuity, and parodying the Bulgarian classic literature.

But while the 1990s was a bad time for novels, poetry was beginning to flourish...even though not many people were buying it. Authors began to experiment with plot and created more of a post-modernist approach to literature. At the same time Russia's influence was declining and the West's influence was gaining a greater foothold in the literary community. Authors were beginning to experiment with West-styled ideas with writing and were making allusions to Anglo-Saxon literature.

Today there still is not much of a market for Bulgarian literature. The government has tried to curb this by creating literature prizes for authors each year, though. The prize is to have their piece of literature translated into English. Unfortunately none of the American publishing companies have been interested in picking up any of this literature for publication. But two of the authors who read some of their work to us today were wonderful! I'm looking forward to using some of their material in my classes and starting to promote Bulgarian literature: there are some really exciting things going on with the literature scene here in Sofia!

Well, I am almost finished with student questions: two left and then I'm done! Throughout the past 30 days I've answered a TON of them...almost all 150 of my students asked a question. So let me answer the last two:

Laura -- The tourists sights in Bulgaria definitely include two regions: Sofia and the Black Sea Coast. Sofia is the center of the country and a great place to come to meet people and see what life is like for the typical person. There are great sights around Sofia to visit as well including the sights that I have blogged about already: Boyana Church, Nevski Cathedral, The Archeological Museum, the Museum of History, Rila Monastery, and Vitosha Mountain. One place I won't get to visit is the Thracian caves in northern Bulgaria, which are a great tourist sight as well. The Black Sea Coast is where all Bulgarians go for vacation. The sea is there for swimming and there is good shopping and historical city centers to see. You'll see pictures of these places soon since for the next five days I will be traveling around Bulgaria visiting the coast.

Shanisha -- Bulgaria is famous for their history: it is very similar to Greek history since the countries share borders. Bulgaria also is known for their friendly people!

Well tomorrow we leave Sofia for a bit and travel around the country. Saturday I will be in Veliko Turnovo, the old capital of Bulgaria. I look forward to telling you all about it tomorrow!

Cheers!