Work­ing lan­guages: Ser­bi­an, Croa­tian, Rus­si­an

Field of work: Fic­tion

Short bio­graphy: Zhela Geor­gieva has gradu­ated Slavic philo­logy (South Slavic lan­guages and lit­er­at­ures and Rus­si­an lan­guage and lit­er­at­ure). She has worked as spe­cial­ist, edit­or and pub­lish­er at the Nation­al Lib­rary “St​.St. Cyril and Meth­o­di­us”, at Radio Sofia, the nation­al broad­cast­ing com­pany, and at the Otechestvo Pub­lish­ing House. For ten years she was Editor-in-Chief of Pan­or­ama Pub­lish­ers and of Pan­or­ama Quarterly, both divi­sions of the Bul­gari­an Trans­lat­ors’ Uni­on and both spe­cial­ized in trans­lated lit­er­at­ure.

Selec­ted trans­la­tions:

From Ser­bi­an

• Ivo Andric. The Bridge of the Drina. Uniskorp Publ. Sofia, 2010; 2 edi­tion – 2016
• Bor­is­lav Pekic. The Man who Ate Death. Uniskorp Publ. Sofia, 2010
• Dra­goslav Mihail­ovic. When Pump­kins Blos­somed. Nov­el and selec­ted stor­ies. Hristo G. Dan­ov Pub­lish­ing House, Plov­div, 1982; 2 edi­tion – Stigmati,Sofia,2009
• Dra­goslav Mihail­ovic. Petriya’s Wreath. Nov­el. Nar­odna Kul­tura Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia, NOLIT- Bel­grade, 1985; 2 edi­tion – Stig­mati, Sofia, 2009
• Danilo Kish. Encyc­lo­pe­dia of the Dead. Stig­mati Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia, 2000
• Danilo Kish. The Lute and the Scars. Fama Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia, 2012
• Meša Selimović. The Death and the Dervish. Nov­el. Black Flamingo Publ. Sofia, 2012
• Gor­an Pet­ro­vic. Small­talk Place “Lucky Shot” . Nov­el. Stig­mati Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia. 2004
• Gor­an Pet­ro­vic. Close One and oth­er stor­ies. Balkani Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia, 2005
• Gor­an Pet­ro­vic. Sky-Locked Atlas Novel.Stigmati Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia, 2007
• Gor­an Pet­ro­vic. Dif­fer­ences. Stor­ies. Stig­mati Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia, 2011
• Milorad Pavic. The Intern­al Side of Wind. Kolibri Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia, 2007
• Milorad Pavic. Second body. Kolibri Publ. House, Sofia,2009
• Miroslav Pop­ovic. Fates. Nov­el. Stig­mati Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia, 2007
• Bora Stankovic. Impure Blood. Nov­el. Vodolei Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia, 19

From Croa­tian

• Dub­ravka Ugre­sh­ic. Cul­ture of Lying. Anti-Political Essays. Stig­mati Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia.1999
• Dub­ravka Ugre­sh­ic. Amer­ic­an Dic­tion­ary. Essays. Stig­mati Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia. 1999
• Dub­ravka Ugre­sh­ic.  For­cing of the River Nov­el. Nov­el. Stig­mati Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia. 2002
• Dub­ravka Ugre­sh­ic. Museum of Uncon­di­tion­al Sur­render. Nov­el. Stig­mati Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia, 2004
• Antun Sholy­an. Short Excur­sion. Nov­el. Nar­odna Kul­tura Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia,1981
• Ranko Marinkovic. Arms. Stor­ies and nov­el­ettes. Nar­odna Kul­tura Pub­lish­ing House,  Sofia, 1978
• Ivo Bre­shan. Act­ing Ham­let in the Vil­lage of Mrdusa Donja; The Death of the House mani­ger. Stage­plays. Series Theat­er.
• Pre­drag Matve­jevic. Medit­er­anski brevi­jar. Kolibri Publ. House. Sofia, 2009
• Velko Bar­bieri. Epi­taph of the Imper­i­al Gour­met. Faber Pub­lish­ing House. Veliko Tar­novo, 2010
• Milen­ko Jer­gov­ic. Buick Rivera. Pan­or­ama Publ. House. Sofia, 2011
• Igor Stiks. Eliah’s Chair. Pan­or­ama Publ. Sofia, 2013

From Rus­si­an

About 15 Books from Rus­si­an Writers, includ­ing Vladi­mir Korolen­ko, Kon­stantin Fed­in, Leonid Leonov, Veniam­in Kaver­in, Vasiliy Hazan­ov, Grig­or­iy Oster, Gayto Gazdan­ov.

Awards

• Zhela Georgieva’s trans­la­tions have been awar­ded the highest nation­al and for­eign lit­er­ary Prizes.

Con­tact: zhelage@mail.bg; 02–898-86–89; 0876–51-79–78

Work­ing lan­guages: Chinese, Clas­sic­al Chinese, Eng­lish, Rus­si­an, Romani­an, Ser­bi­an, Old Bul­gari­an and Church Slavon­ic

Field of work: lit­er­at­ure (poetry and prose, mainly clas­sic­al) and human­it­ies (philo­sophy, reli­gion, etc.).

Short Bio­graphy: Born in Plov­div on Septem­ber 4, 1972. In 1991, he gradu­ated from the Eng­lish Lan­guage School of Plov­div. In 1996, he gradu­ated from Sofia Uni­ver­sity as a MA in sino­logy, with a second major in Romani­an Stud­ies. Trans­lat­or, author and edit­or of Chris­ti­an lit­er­at­ure at St. Luke Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia (1993–2010). Author of art­icles, travelogues and essays in the field of Chris­ti­an philo­sophy and theo­logy, lin­guist­ics and lit­er­ary stud­ies. Author of poetry, children’s stor­ies, the his­tor­ic­al and theo­lo­gic­al book “The New Mar­tyrs of Batak” (Sofia, 2006), also author of litur­gic­al poetry and hym­no­graphy in the Church Slavon­ic lan­guage. In the peri­od 2010–2013 he was an Eng­lish teach­er in Foshan, Guang­dong, China. From 2012 until now is a con­sult­ant and trans­lat­or from clas­sic­al and mod­ern Chinese lan­guage, Eng­lish and old Rus­si­an lan­guage in the “East-West” Pub­lish­ing House, as well as a freel­ance trans­lat­or, nar­rat­or of audiobooks, musi­cian and sing­er. Mar­ried to a Chinese lady, with two chil­dren.

Selec­ted trans­la­tions:

From mod­ern Chinese:

• Mo Yan, Life and Death Are Wear­ing Me Out, a nov­el (《生死疲劳》莫言著). Let­tera Pub­lish­ing House, 2015, 887 p.
• Xu Zhimo, Selec­ted Poems. Con­fucius Insti­tute Magazine 1/2013
• Lin Yutang, My Coun­try and My People. East-West Pub­lish­ing House, 2015, 448 p., trans­la­tion from the Eng­lish and Chinese.

 From clas­sic­al and medi­ev­al ver­nacu­lar Chinese:

• Anonym­ous author, The Thirty-Six Stratagems (《三十六計》A treat­ise on mil­it­ary art, with com­ments and inter­pret­a­tions by the trans­lat­or). East-West Pub­lish­ing House, 2013, 320 p.
• Wang Yong­bin, Noc­turn­al Talks by the Fireside (《圍爐夜話》王永彬著，“fragments of pure words,” with com­ments and inter­pret­a­tions by the trans­lat­or). East-West Pub­lish­ing House, 2014, 288 p.
• Cao Xueqin, A Dream in Red Man­sions, v. 1, (《紅樓夢》第一冊，曹雪芹著) East-West Pub­lish­ing House, 2015, 608 p.
• Shi Yukun, Sev­en Her­oes and Five Gal­lants, v. 1 (《七俠五義》石玉昆著，a medi­ev­al nov­el of adven­ture, mys­tery and mar­tial arts), East-West Pub­lish­ing House, 2016, 544 p.

From Bul­gari­an:

• Petko Hinov, The New Mar­tyrs of Batak. “Liv­ing Ortho­doxy”, NY 2013–2015

From Church Slavon­ic:

• Akath­ist to St. Pho­ti­us of Con­stantinople, Sofia 2004
• Akath­ist to the Miracle-working Icon of the Most Holy Theo­tokos “Joy of All Who Sor­row,” Sofia 2005
• Akath­ist to St. Men­as the Great Mar­tyr, Sofia 2007
• A Com­plete Vigil Ser­vice and Akath­ist to the New Mar­tyrs of Batak  (author, in Church Slavon­ic, trans­lat­or, in Bul­gari­an, Sofia 2007, 95 p.)
• The Psal­ter, Sofia 2009, unpub­lished, 180 p.

From Ser­bi­an:

• Bish­op Nikolai Velimirovic, I Believe in One God: Explan­a­tion of The Sym­bol of the Ortho­dox Faith. St. Luke Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia 2005, 102 p.
• Bish­op Nikolai Velimirovic, Above East and West: Eight Philo­soph­ic­al Reflec­tions On the Ortho­dox Balkans. St. Luke Pub­lish­ing House, Sofia 2004, 42 p.

From Rus­si­an:

• Theo­phan the Recluse, Short Med­it­a­tions for Every Day of the Year on the Church Read­ings from the Word of God, unpub­lished, Sofia 2005, 304 p.

From Romani­an into Church Slavon­ic:

• A Ser­vice to Our Ven­er­able and God-bearing Fath­er Dimitri­os of Bas­ar­bovo. Sofia 2006

From Eng­lish into Church Slavon­ic: 

• Isaac Lam­bertsen, Ser­vice to Our Ven­er­able Fath­er Hil­ari­on, Met­ro­pol­it­an of Kiev, Schema­monk of the Mon­as­tery of the Caves, Whose Holy Rel­ics Repose in the Far Caves. Sofia 2015
• Isaac Lam­bertsen, Ser­vice to the Holy and Right-believing Vladislav-Stephen, King of Ser­bia. Sofia 2016

Awards:

• 2014 — Spe­cial Award of the year of the Uni­on of Bul­gari­an trans­lat­ors for excep­tion­al excel­lence in trans­la­tion, for the Bul­gari­an trans­la­tion from Clas­sic­al Chinese of the book “The Thirty-Six Strategems” and “Noc­turn­al Talks by the Fireside” (East-West Pub­lish­ing House)
• 2015 — Nation­al yearly award “Hristo G. Dan­ov” of the Min­istry of Cul­ture for fic­tion trans­la­tion, for the trans­la­tion of “A Dream of Red Man­sions” vol.1 by Cao Xueqin.

Con­tact: petkohinov@gmail.com / petkohinov@abv.bg ; cell­phone: +359 893 397 702 ; skype: eli_christoff

Work­ing lan­guages: Ger­man

Field of work: Lit­er­ary Trans­la­tion, Human­it­ies

Short bio­graphy: Ana Dimova was born on 30^th June 1947 in Svilen­grad. She gradu­ated in Ger­man Stud­ies from the  Uni­ver­sity of Sofia St. Kli­ment Ohrid­ski in 1970. She taught Ger­man Lin­guist­ics and Trans­la­tion Stud­ies at Kon­stantin Preslavsky Uni­ver­sity of Shumen from 1974 to 2014. She com­pleted her doc­tor­al research at Leipzig Uni­ver­sity, Ger­many in 1979; in 2006, she was awar­ded the title of Dr. Habil in The­ory and Prac­tice of Trans­la­tion, and, since 2007, she has been full pro­fessor of Ger­man Stud­ies. As a vis­it­ing pro­fess­or she also taught at the Uni­ver­sity of Veliko Turnovo, the Uni­ver­sity of Sofia, Plov­div Uni­ver­sity, and New Bul­gari­an Uni­ver­sity. She taught Bul­gari­an Lan­guage and Cul­ture at Lud­wig Max­imili­an Uni­ver­sity of Munich, Ger­many, from 1998 to 2001. She spe­cial­ized at the uni­ver­sit­ies of Vienna, Göt­tin­gen, Erlan­gen, Pots­dam, and Bayreuth.

Selec­ted trans­la­tions:

• Herm­lin, Stephan. Abend­licht. Stories.Sofia
• Weiss, Ernst. Der Arme Ver­schwender. Nov­el. Sofia
• Roth, Joseph. DieKapuz­in­er­gruft. Nov­el and Stor­ies. Sofia
• Kraus, Karl. DieBüchseder­Pan­dorra. Essays and Aph­or­isms. Sofia
• Rans­mayr, Chris­toph. Die let­zte Welt. Nov­el. Sofia
• Ass­mann, Jan. Das kulurelle Gedächt­nis. Sofia
• Celan, Paul. Die Niemand­srose. Ger­man and Bul­gari­an. Sofia 2001.
• Oroschakoff, Har­alampi. Die Bat­ten­berg-Affäre. Nov­el. Plov­div
• Fal­lada, Hans. Jeder stirbt für sich allein. Nov­el. Plov­div
• Gruber, Mari­anne. Erin­ner­ungen eines Nar­ren. Ruse 2014.

 Awards: Award for Lit­er­ary Trans­la­tion of the Aus­tri­an Min­istry of Edu­ca­tion and Arts

Con­tact: e‑mail: ana.dimova@abv.bg

Work­ing lan­guages: Bul­gari­an, Eng­lish, French

Field of work: fic­tion, art his­tory, theat­er, cinema, archi­tec­ture, psy­cho­logy, music

Short bio­graphy: Velina Minkoff was born in 1974 in Sofia, Bul­garia. She holds a BA in Eng­lish from UCLA with a track in Cre­at­ive Writ­ing – Fic­tion, and a Master’s degree in European Stud­ies from the Uni­ver­sity of Ams­ter­dam with a track in European cul­ture and his­tory.

She trans­lated The Love Machine, a nov­el by Amer­ic­an author Jaqueline Susann (Colibri, Bul­garia, 1992) while still a stu­dent at the Eng­lish Lan­guage School in Sofia. That same year, Velina trans­lated from Eng­lish to Bul­gari­an the film script of the Nor­weigan entry in the Inter­na­tion­al Tele­vi­sion Fest­iv­al Zlat­nata rakla (Plov­div, Bul­garia) which won first prize in the youth TV film sec­tion and was broad­cast on Bul­gari­an Nation­al Tele­vi­sion. In 1993, she trans­lated into Eng­lish a radio drama by aspir­ing Bul­gari­an play­wright Pla­men Sta­men­ov, which won the Brit­ish Council’s Inter­na­tion­al Play­writ­ing Com­pet­i­tion and was broad­cast on the BBC World Ser­vice. Later that year, Velina trans­lated Jacintha, a nov­el by Brit­ish author Kath­leen Win­sor (Bard, Bul­garia, 1993.)

While study­ing in the US, Velina col­lab­or­ated with Bul­gari­an artists and musi­cians for the trans­la­tion of poetry for song lyr­ics and con­tem­por­ary art exhib­i­tions. Dur­ing her gradu­ate stud­ies in the Neth­er­lands, she trans­lated into Eng­lish the film sub­titles of Let­ter to Amer­ica (Bul­garia, 2001) by dir­ect­or Iglika Tri­fonova, for its screen­ing at the Noor­delijk Film Fest­iv­al in 2003, where it won the grand prize of the jury.

Velina was selec­ted as a par­ti­cipant in the Trans­lat­ors’ Atelier Work­shop of the Eliza­beth Kostova Found­a­tion for three con­sec­ut­ive years (2013, 2014 and 2015.) In 2015, she trans­lated into Eng­lish What We Don’t Know About Love, a non-fiction psy­cho­logy and com­mu­nic­tion skills best­seller by Bul­gari­an author Milena Dinkova-Rodriguez (Colibri, Bul­garia, 2015.)

Velina lives in Par­is, where she teaches Eng­lish, freel­ances as a trans­lat­or and edit­or and is cur­rently work­ing on a short story col­lec­tion in Bul­gari­an, which will include her own trans­la­tions of stor­ies she ori­gin­ally wrote in Eng­lish.

Selec­ted trans­la­tions:

• The Love Machine by Jaqueline Susann (Colibri, Bul­garia, 1992)
• Jacintha by Kath­leen Win­sor (Bard, Bul­garia, 1993)
• Alicia the Fat Witch by Chris­tos Char­to­mat­sid­is
• What We Don’t Know About Love, by Milena Dinkova-Rodriguez (Colibri, Bul­garia, 2015)

Con­tact: velinaminkoff@gmail.com

Work­ing lan­guages: Span­ish

Field of work: con­tem­por­ary Spanish-language fic­tion and non-fiction in the human­it­ies

Short bio­graphy: Teodora Tzankova is a Research fel­low at the Insti­tute for Lit­er­at­ure and has been a part-time Lec­turer at the St Kli­ment Ohrid­ski Uni­ver­sity of Sofia since 2004. She has a BA in Span­ish Philo­logy (2003), an MA from the Translator-Editor with Span­ish pro­gramme (2005) and anoth­er MA in Lit­er­ary Stud­ies (2007) at the St Kli­ment Ohrid­ski Uni­ver­sity of Sofia. She holds a PhD from the Uni­ver­sity of Sofia for her dis­ser­ta­tion on The Por­trait in Lit­er­ary Modernism(Oscar Wilde, James Joyce, and José Martínez Ruiz – Azorín). Her interests are in the spheres of com­par­at­ive lit­er­at­ure and lit­er­ary trans­la­tion.

From 2013 to 2019 she has been Chair of Lit­er­ary Trans­la­tion Sec­tion at the Bul­gari­an Trans­lat­ors’ Uni­on. Since 2011 she is a per­man­ent rep­res­ent­at­ive of BTU at CEATL.

Selec­ted trans­la­tions:

• Ricardo Güirdaldes, Don Segundo Som­bra (Ergo, 2018);
• Unai Elor­riaga, Un tran­vía en SP (Small Sta­tions Press, 2017); 
• Javi­er Marías, The Man of Feel­ing (Colibri, 2017);
• José Ignacio Tor­reb­lanca, ¿Quién gobi­erna en Europa? (Cri­ti­cism and Human­ism, 2015);
• Javi­er Marías, Los enam­or­ami­en­tos (Altera, 2014);
• Agustín Fernán­dez Paz, Aire negro (Small Sta­tions Press, 2013);
• Enrique Vila-Matas, Bar­tleby y com­pañía. (Pan­or­ama, 2010);
• Cam­i­lo José Cela, Madera de boj (Fama, 2009);
• Jorge Luis Borges, El libro de los seres ima­gin­ari­os (Fama, 2008);
• Tomás Eloy Martínez, “Peri­od­ismo y nar­ra­ción: desafíos para el siglo XXI” and “Fic­ción, his­tor­ia, peri­od­ismo: límites y márgenes” // Lit­er­at­urata magazine, v. 4, pp. 31–60;
• Néstor Gar­cía Can­clini, “Noti­cias recientes sobre la hibrid­iza­ción”; Beat­riz Sarlo, “Jóvenes”, “El centro comer­cial” // Lit­er­at­urata magazine, v. 3, pp. 104–140;

Awards:

• Prize of the Min­istry of Cul­ture for Con­tri­bu­tion to the Bul­gari­an Cul­ture on the occa­sion of 24^th May: Bul­gari­an Edu­ca­tion and Cul­ture and Slavon­ic Lit­er­at­ure Day, 2009;
• First Prize for the trans­la­tion of El libro de los seres ima­gin­ari­os by Jorge Luis Borges on a com­pet­i­tion organ­ized by the Fac­ulty of Clas­sic­al and Mod­ern Philo­lo­gies on the occa­sion of the 120 anniversary of Sofia Uni­ver­sity “St. Kli­ment Ohrid­ski”;

Con­tact:

• email: t.tzankova@gmail.com