On November 15 from 7:00 p.m. at the National Gallery – the Palace, Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov and Ukrainian-German writer Katja Petrowskaja will discuss history, landmark events, the past, and the topic of death. Both writers are recipients of the prestigious Premio Strega Europeo award. The moderator for the talk will be literary historian and professor Ani Burova.
Georgi Gospodinov is a poet, writer, playwright, and literary critic—the most read and translated Bulgarian author in the world. In 2023, together with the translator Angela Rodel, he won one of the world’s most prestigious literary prizes, the Booker International, for the English edition of the novel Time Shelter (published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London). Time Shelter is also the first Bulgarian novel to win the Premio Strega Europeo. Gospodinov has been bestowed with numerous awards, including the Angelus for Central European literature, the Jan Michalski Prize for Literature, a Chevalier of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres, and the Golden Age medal from the Bulgarian Ministry of Culture. Gospodinov’s books have been published in over 50 countries so far, in more than 30 languages, and have been taught in universities in Europe, Great Britain, the USA, and Argentina for years. Gospodinov is an associate professor of new and contemporary Bulgarian literature at the Institute of Literature at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences.
Katja Petrowskaja was born in Kyiv, went to university in Tartu, and received her doctoral degree in Moscow in 1999. She began studying German when she was already 26 years old, but the language became the language of literature for her.
The author has won the prestigious Ingeborg Bachmann Prize in Klagenfurt, Austria, as well as the Aspecte Literature Prize and the Ernst-Toller-Preis, the Schubert literary award of the city of Aalen, and, as mentioned above, the Premio Strega Europeo. Her literary debut Maybe Esther has been translated into 20 languages, including Bulgarian (translated by Milen Milev and published by Paradox). Katja Petrowskaja reminds us that the truth can be based on unreliable memories and that we are shaped by multiple voices from the past. For the author, the stories of her Ukrainian-Jewish family, in their fragmentary, unfinished form, are a key to the traumatic experience of the 20th century, and at the same time – an opportunity for emancipation.
Free entry / Seating is limited and people will be admitted until all places are filled
With Bulgarian translation
The visual design is the work of Kostadin Kokalanov of Studio FRANK
The Literary Talks program is organized by the Read Sofia foundation
“Literary Talks” is made possible with the support of the Ministry of Culture and the Capital Municipality. Literary Talks Fall 2024 has been carried out in partnership with the Sofia University Culture Center and with the support of the America for Bulgaria foundation