Suspend Your Disbelief

Posts Tagged ‘Bulgaria’

Interviews |

Maybe the World is a Story: an Interview with Miroslav Penkov

“Is it possible for us to solve a problem our ancestors struggled with and by doing so liberate not only ourselves but also them, retroactively, and allow them repose as well? Reversing the direction of time’s arrow was an idea I wanted to explore in this novel.”


Shop Talk |

Connecting the Dots: International Lit and Collaboration in Bulgaria

In 2009 I attended the second annual Sozopol Fiction Seminars, sponsored by the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation and held each May on the Black Sea coast of Bulgaria. I lost my sunglasses in the sea, which the Bulgarians told me meant I had to return. This year I did go back, and most things have remained the same. There are still five English-speaking fellows and five Bulgarians, and the bus ride from the capital city of Sofia cross-country to Sozopol is both long and beautiful. Elizabeth Kostova, whom one might assume has too big of a name to share her work […]


Shop Talk |

2012 Sozopol Fiction Seminars Application Deadline March 7th

Reminder: There are still a few days left to apply for the 2012 Sozopol Fiction Seminars. This year marks the fifth anniversary of the Seminars, which take place each year in the historic, seaside town of Sozopol, on Bulgaria’s Black Sea coast. Famed fiction writer, essayist, journalist, and naturalist Barry Lopez will be the distinguished English language guest lecturer this season. Lopez is the author of many books, including Arctic Dreams, which received the National Book Award, Of Wolves and Men, which was a National Book Award finalist and the recipient of the John Burroughs and Christopher medals, and numerous […]


Essays |

The 2011 Sozopol Fiction Seminar: Part II

Step two: engage. Sozopol coverage continues with Molly Antopol’s conversation with Bulgarian author Miroslav Penkov and Lee Kaplan Romer’s meditation on writing as an act of defiance and grace.


Essays |

The 2011 Sozopol Fiction Seminar: Part I

Step One: Leave home. Three fellows from the Sozopol Fiction Seminar consider questions of travel, culture, and translation. Part I: John Struloeff on international diplomacy and collaboration, Jane E. Martin on finding home abroad, and Michael Hinken on how we rediscover home by leaving it. Later this week: Molly Antopol and Lee Romer Kaplan.