Author Archives: Teodora Tzankova

Dimana Ivanova

Work­ing lan­guages: Czech, Slov­ak, French and Eng­lish.

Field of work: Trans­la­tion of lit­er­ary texts (both poetry and fic­tion both).

Short bio­graphy: Dimana Ivan­ova (PhD.) was born in Varna, Repub­lic Bul­garia, in 1979. She earned her Mas­ters in Slavon­ic philo­logy at the Uni­ver­sity of Kli­ment Ochrid­ski in Sofia with a minor in French philo­logy. Since 2008, she has also been a reg­u­lar author of the Czech elec­tron­ic news­pa­per www​.ilit​er​atura​.cz. and since the year of 2014 to the year of 2016 has been a mem­ber of the edit­or­i­al board of news­pa­per San­ar­od­nik in Brat­is­lava. Her doc­tor­al dis­ser­ta­tion is about the com­par­at­ive aspects of Czech dec­ad­ent poetry and has been suc­cess­fully defen­ded in the year of 2011 at the Charles Uni­ver­sity of Prague. She is the author of two poems’ books Invit­a­tion for a Fath­er (Ergo, 2012) and Alpha­bet of the desires (Scalino, 2016). Her poems have been trans­lated in many lan­guages and pub­lished into numer­ous lit­er­ary journ­als and antho­lo­gies in Bul­garia, Czech repub­lic, Slov­akia, Mace­do­nia, Romania, Spain, Eng­land, Canada, Lat­in Amer­ica, USA and oth­er. She has worked as a teach­er of French in Slov­akia from the year of 2012 till the year of 2017. From the year of 2017 till now she is work­ing as a teach­er of Bul­gari­an lan­guage and lit­er­at­ure at the Bul­gari­an school Boy­an Maga in Lon­don.  She is also a mem­ber of the Czech alli­ance of the journ­al­ists, Bul­gari­an alli­ance of the trans­lat­ors, poetry move­ments Poetas del mundo in Lat­in Amer­ica  and Pars Artem in Slov­akia and the Czech-Slovakian Asso­ci­ation of com­par­at­ive lit­er­at­ure.

Selec­ted trans­la­tions:

  • Tereza Riedlbauchová. Edna dalga nosht v Biskupov. Plov­div, 2011. Ed. Zanet-45. Trans­la­tion from Czech: Dimana Ivan­ova.
  • Peter Bilý. Sve­ti­at demon. Sofia, 2011. Ed. „Ergo“. Trans­la­tion from Slov­ak: Dimana Ivan­ova.
  • Eka­ter­ina Jos­i­fo­vová. Útla knižka. Kopčany, 2017. Ed. Forza Slov­akia. Trans­la­tion from Bul­gari­an into Slov­ak: Dimana Ivan­o­vová a Igor Kru­cov­čin.

Awards:

  • Twice awar­ded with the Grig­or Len­kov prize at the Czech cen­ter in Sofia (for her trans­la­tions of the story “Kalok­agath­ia” of František Gel­ner and the poems of Kateřina Rudčen­ková);
  • Prize of the Bul­gari­an trans­lat­ors’ Uni­on for out­stand­ing achieve­ment in the trans­la­tion of Bul­gari­an lit­er­at­ure into for­eign lan­guage for her trans­la­tion of the poetry col­lec­tion “Útla knižka“ of Eka­ter­ina Jos­i­fova in Slov­ak (co-translator: Igor Kru­cov­čin).

Con­tact: e‑mail: dimanaiv@abv.bg

 

Gergana Fyrkova-Angelova

Work­ing lan­guages: Ger­man

Field of work: Lit­er­ary trans­la­tion; Film trans­la­tion

Short bio­graphy: Ger­gana Fyrkova (1965) gradu­ated from the Ger­man Lan­guage School in Sofia in 1984. In 1990 she obtained a degree in Ger­man Philo­logy from the Uni­ver­sity of Sofia “St. Kli­ment Ohrid­ski” and com­pleted spe­cial­iz­a­tions at Hum­boldt Uni­ver­sity (1987–1988), Ber­lin and the European Uni­ver­sity Viad­rina Frank­furt (Oder) (2016). She received her Ph.D. degree from the Uni­ver­sity of Sofia in 2017. Her first Bul­gari­an trans­la­tions (Rudolf Arnheim’s “Cinema as Art” and “From Cal­igari to Hitler” by Siegfried Kra­cauer) were pub­lished while she was still study­ing Ger­man philo­logy. As a trans­lat­or, she is mainly inter­ested in film and lit­er­ary trans­la­tion with a focus on the lit­er­at­ure of the early 20th cen­tury (Franz Kafka, Robert Walser, Josef Roth) and mod­ern Ger­man lit­er­at­ure (Iliya Troy­an­ov, Dim­it­ar Dinev, Clem­ens J. Setz, Mari­on Post­man, Michael Kump­fmüller, Sasa Stan­is­ic). Along with her trans­la­tion work, she is also act­ive as a film crit­ic and journ­al­ist. Ger­gana Fyrkova has been teach­ing Ger­man lan­guage and Busi­ness com­mu­nic­a­tion at the Fac­ulty of Clas­sic­al and Mod­ern Philo­logy at the Uni­ver­sity of Sofia “St. Kli­ment Ohrid­ski” since 1994. She is a mem­ber of the Asso­ci­ation of Bul­gari­an film­makers and the Asso­ci­ation of Bul­gari­an Journ­al­ists, co-founder and mem­ber of the Asso­ci­ation of Ger­man­ists in Bul­garia, and a mem­ber of the Europäisches Übersetzer-Kollegium (EÜK) in Straelen.

Selec­ted trans­la­tions:

  • Rudolf Arnheim, “Film als Kunst”: “Kinoto kato izkustvo”, Nauka I Iskustvo: 1989
  • Rudolf Arnheim, “Der neue Laokoon. Kritiken und Auf­sätze zum Film”: Noviy­at Laokoon. Statii i studii, Nauka I Iskustvo:1989
  • Siegfried Kra­cauer, “Von Cal­igari zu Hitler. Eine psy­cho­lo­gis­che Geschichte des deutschen Films: Ot Kal­igari kŭm Hitler. Psi­ho­lo­gicheska istor­iya na ger­manskoto kino, Nauka I Iskustvo: 1991
  • Franz Kafka “Heimkehr. Nov­el­len, Skizzen, Aph­or­is­men”: Zavrŭshtane u doma. Razkazi i frag­menti, Nar­odna Kul­tura Ver­lag: 1993
  • Ilija Tro­janow “Die Welt ist groß und Ret­tung lauert über­all”: Svetŭt e goliyam i spasenie debne otvsiyakŭde, Nar­odna Kul­tura: 1997
  • Dimitre Dinev, „Engelszun­gen“: Angel­ski ezit­si, Riwa: 2006
  • Pas­cal Mer­ci­er, Nachtzug nach Liss­a­bon, Nosht­en vlak za Lis­a­bon, Altera: 2009
  • Robert Walser, Geschwister Tan­ner: Semeistvo Tan­ner, Colibri: 2009
  • Joseph Roth, Hiob: Iov, Fun­tasy Pub­lish­ing House: 2011
  • Clem­ens J. Setz, Indigo: Indigo, Fun­tasy Pub­lish­ing House: 2014
  • Mari­on Poschmann, Sonnen­posi­tion: Slŭnt­sestoy­anie, Fun­tasy Pub­lish­ing House: 2016
  • Sasa Stan­is­ic, Vor dem Fest: Predi praznika, Fun­tasy Pub­lish­ing House: 2016
  • Robert Walser, Walser im Bur­eau: V kant­selar­iyata, Fun­tasy Pub­lish­ing House: 2017

Con­tact: gerfyrkova@gmail.com; 0886124782

Three Cases of Plagiarism

In the past year the Bul­gari­an Trans­lat­ors’ Uni­on has dealt with a num­ber of cases of trans­la­tion pla­gi­ar­ism.

Last March Prof. Ana Dimova, lit­er­ary trans­lat­or and BTU mem­ber, pub­lished an art­icle entitled The (Un)known Joseph Roth: Trans­la­tion or Tran­script in the renowned lit­er­ary news­pa­per Lit­er­at­uren Vest­nik. In the art­icle she com­pared a recent trans­la­tion of Joseph Roth’s stor­ies into Bul­gari­an by Vladko Murdarov („Легенда за пияницата светец“, Black Flamingo, 2015) with her own trans­la­tion of the same stor­ies of thirty years pre­vi­ously („Гробницата на капуцините“. Избрани творби. Народна култура, 1986) and found the dif­fer­ences min­im­al. BTU’s Pro­fes­sion­al Eth­ics Com­mit­tee decided to invest­ig­ate the case and asked for an expert opin­ion. Ger­gana Fyrkova-Angelova, PhD, schol­ar and lit­er­ary trans­lat­or her­self, ana­lysed the two Bul­gari­an ver­sions of the same works (namely Der Vorzugsschüler, Kar­ri­ere, Kranke Mensch­heit, April. Die Geschichte ein­er Liebe, Der blinde Spiegel, Sta­tion­schef Fallmeray­er, Tri­umph der Schön­heit, Die Büste des Kais­ers, Der Leviath­an, Die Legende vom hei­li­gen Trink­er) in detail, tak­ing into account the spe­cif­ics of the ori­gin­al texts and con­cluded that in their oth­er trans­la­tion work the two trans­lat­ors have their own, very dif­fer­ent approaches, that Vladko Murdarov used Ana Dimova’s trans­la­tion, mak­ing insig­ni­fic­ant cor­rec­tions to it and that, in short, his trans­la­tion can­not be con­sidered an autonom­ous work. On the basis of Fyrkova-Angelova’s expert opin­ion, BTU pub­lished an offi­cial state­ment claim­ing that Ana Dimova’s trans­la­tion had been bor­rowed from dir­ectly by Vladko Murdarov, and con­demned the unlaw­ful deed.

Sev­er­al months later, the Pro­fes­sion­al Eth­ics Com­mit­tee received anoth­er notice of pla­gi­ar­ism: this time it was about the trans­la­tion of a col­lec­tion of stor­ies by Arthur Schnitz­ler („Като насън“, Black Flamingo, 2012) by Vladko Murdarov. The ana­lyt­ic­al expert­ise of Ger­gana Fyrkova-Angelova con­cluded once again that Murdarov had delib­er­atedly used pre­vi­ous trans­la­tions of the same ori­gin­al texts (Fräulein Else, Spiel im Mor­gen­grauen, Traum­nov­elle), trans­lated respect­ively by Nikola Tol­chev, Panayot K. Chilkov and Nedyalka Pop­ova, mak­ing min­im­al changes, not related to exist­ing mis­takes. BTU pub­lished anoth­er offi­cial state­ment defend­ing the copy­right of the trans­lat­ors whose work had been stolen and drew atten­tion to the fact that a second trans­la­tion of Schnitzler’s stor­ies was pub­lished in Bul­garia not because of defi­cien­cies in the first one but because of the fin­an­cial sup­port by for­eign cul­tur­al insti­tu­tions.

Finally, Kon­stantin Iliev, a dis­tin­guished Bul­gari­an play­wright, author and trans­lat­or, wrote a let­ter to inform BTU that his trans­la­tion of Die Klein­bür­ger­hochzeit („Избрани творби на Бертолт Брехт“, т. ІІІ, Народна култура, 1985) had been pla­gi­ar­ised once again by Vladko Murdarov („Едноактни и пиеси уроци“, Рива, 2009). Iliev him­self gave repeated and irre­fut­able proof of the deed. BTU con­demned the unlaw­ful prac­tice of trans­la­tion pla­gi­ar­ism and declared its resolve to con­tin­ue defend­ing trans­lat­ors’ rights.

All state­ments by BTU and Ger­gana Fyrkova-Angelova’s expert opin­ions are avail­able on the BTU’s web­site and have been pub­lished in the cul­tur­al press. Kon­stantin Iliev’s let­ter is pub­lished in Kul­tura news­pa­per.

Bulgarian Translators’ Union honours translator Iglika Vassileva

At the end of 2017 the Bul­gari­an Trans­lat­ors’ Uni­on organ­ised an even­ing ded­ic­ated to lit­er­ary trans­lat­or Iglika Vassil­eva and her inter­pret­a­tion of the works of Vir­gin­ia Woolf in Bul­gari­an. It was the twen­ti­eth anniversary of the first pub­lic­a­tion of Vassileva’s trans­la­tion of  To the Light­house  and a birth­day anniversary of the admired trans­lat­or.

Aca­dem­ics and crit­ics shared their views on Vassileva’s always per­cept­ive, thor­ough and inspir­ing work as a lit­er­ary trans­lat­or. Frag­ments from her trans­la­tions were read aloud. Vassil­eva her­self talked about her exper­i­ence in lit­er­ary trans­la­tion. The event was widely atten­ded and repor­ted on in the cul­tur­al press.

Iglika Vassil­eva

Iglika Vassil­eva is the Bul­gari­an trans­lat­or of almost all works by Vir­gin­ia Woolf: To the Light­house (1997), A Room of One’s Own (1999), Three Guineas (2001), The Years (2009), Between the Acts (2011), Orlando (2013), The Voy­age Out (2014), The Waves (2014), Lit­er­ary Essays (2015), Night and Day(2016), Jacob’s Room (2017), The Wid­ow and the Par­rot (2017). She has also trans­lated into Bul­gari­an works by James Joyce, John Ban­ville, Iris Mur­doch, Vladi­mir Nabokov, Paul Aus­ter, Lawrence Dur­rell and oth­ers.

Evelina Peneva

Work­ing lan­guages: Eng­lish and French

Field of work: lit­er­ary trans­la­tion

Short bio­graphy:

1990 – 1995 School for For­eign Lan­guages “Doc­tor Petar Ber­on”, Kyustendil; First lan­guage – French, second lan­guage – Eng­lish.

1995 – 1999 School of Basic Edu­ca­tion and Under­gradu­ate school, For­eign Lan­guages and Lit­er­at­ures Depart­ment, New Bul­gari­an Uni­ver­sity, Sofia

2000, Bach­el­or of Applied Lin­guist­ics; pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fic­a­tion “Trans­lat­or – Inter­pret­er” – French and Eng­lish.

2002 – 2004, Gradu­ate School, For­eign Lan­guages and Lit­er­at­ures Depart­ment, New Bul­gari­an Uni­ver­sity, Sofia.

2010, Mas­ter. Spe­cialty “Trans­la­tion”, MA pro­gram “The­ory and prac­tice of trans­la­tion and inter­pret­a­tion”; pro­fes­sion­al qual­i­fic­a­tion “philologist-translator with two lan­guages”, Eng­lish and French.

Selec­ted trans­la­tions:

  • The Treas­on of Ghost by Paul Doherty;
  • Open by Andre Agassi;
  • Trans­form­a­tion by Richard Band­ler;
  • The Pas­sage by Justin Cronin;
  • The Twelve by Justin Cronin,
  • The Feath­er Men by Ran­ulph Fiennes;
  • The King’s Speech by Mark Logue and Peter Con­radi;
  • All our Yes­ter­day by Cristin Ter­rill;
  • The Silk Road by Colin Falkon­er;
  • The Stig­mata by Colin Falkon­er;
  • The Night­mare Place by Steve Mosby;
  • Petit Hec­tor apprend la vie, François Lel­ord;
  • A Walk among the Tomb­stones by Lawrence Block.

Con­tact:

mail: nesumaz@gmail.com;

mobile: 0887 20 71 15; 0886 40 13 99