Ludmila Filipova’s novel The Parchment Maze, which topped Bulgarian best-seller lists for several years and which even inspired National Geographic to come to Bulgaria to make a film about its discoveries, can now be read in English too. For more information, visit the personal webpage of the writer.

Publishing house Zhanet 45 and Plovdiv Municipality presented to the public two anthologies, in German and in Bulgarian. These anthologies are part of the collaborative project between the sister towns of Plovdiv and Magdeburg in support of Plovdiv’s bid for European Capital of Culture in 2019. The anthology Literary Plovdiv contains works by Plovdiv writers in their German translation. 

Lora Stoyanova who is a pupil at the Language High school Plovdiv is the Bulgarian winner of the Young Translators Competition organized by the European Commission. Lora’s translation from German into Bulgarian placed her at the front of the 79 peers of hers from Bulgaria who took part in the contest and among the 27 laureates - one from each country of the Union. More about the competition as well as an interview with the young translator in Bulgarian can be read here.  

On 8 April the Czech Cultural Centre in Sofia announced the results of the Translators’ Competition marking the 100 anniversary since the birth of Bohumil Hrabal. The laureate from Bulgaria is Vyara Rizova who translated into Bulgarian Hrabal’s Kafkárna. More about the competition as well as the names of all laureates can be found here. 

He is often dubbed ‘the most famous Bulgarian’ and his stage craft frequently merits the designation ‘epic’. Six months after his death Germany commemorated Dimitar Gochev (Dimiter Gotscheff) by dedicating the Berlin theatrical encounters to his life’s legacy.

One of the richest writing competitions in the UK, the Bridport Prize is open to all nationalities aged 16 years and over.

The Human Library foundation invites all translators with good literary English to the new Longing for translation of On Saving the World into English.

Translate a poem from any language, classical or modern, into English

• Cash prizes • All winning entries published in a booklet • Closing date Friday 23 May 2014

The judges of the 2014 competition are:
Susan Bassnett – Edith Hall – WN Herbert – Stephen Romer

The Elizabeth Kostova Foundation and the Bulgarian Translators’ Union are launching a joint translation workshop for the forth time. The workshop is directed at translators of literature whose working languages are Bulgarian and English.

Georgi Gospodinov’s  novel The Physics of Sorrow is among the long-list nominees  for the Italian award for translated literature Premio Gregor von Rezzori. The novel, translated by Giuseppe dell’Agata and published by Voland, will compete with Peter Carey, twice a Booker prize winner, the renowned American writers Dave Eggers and George Saunders, the Hungarian László Krasznahorkai and a dozen other authors from around the world. The jury  includes Beatrice Monti della Corte, Ernesto Ferrero, Alberto Manguel, Andrea Bajani and Edmund White. Former Gregor von Rezzori laureates are Enrique Vila-Matas, Aleksandar Hemon, Jhumpa Lahiri, Arturo Pérez-Reverte, etc.