Aнглийското издание на обичания роман „Скарида“ от Димитър Коцев-Шошо излезе на английски език с логото на издателство ICU и в превод на Екатерина Петрова. Повече информация на английски за книгата, автора и преводачката ще намерите по-долу.
Анотация:
A young woman with hypnotic green eyes and a practitioner of „the world’s oldest profession,“ Diva Mila is a superstar in the colourful and mystic world of clairvoyants, psychics, and fortune-tellers, which is why people flock to her in hopes of getting a glimpse into their futures.
One of Diva Mila’s most peculiar customers is the Assistant, who claims to be the mythical criminal boss Gorky’s aide, though he is the boss of the underworld himself.
A newly unemployed loser in his late 20s, Bor is dating the Assistant’s only daughter. The criminal boss and his ever-silent wife despise the young man and want him out of their daughter’s life.
Not unlike Updike, Kotzev uses comedy to tackle serious issues, such as Bulgaria’s ancient history, its more recent communist past, its chaotic and trouble-ridden present, the wide-spread governmental corruption, human superstition and belief systems, racism, and relationships; many of the absurd but simultaneously realistic incidents in the book are recounted in a style reminiscent of Ilf and Petrov’s deadpan humor and the absorbing fairy-tale writing style of Tom Robbins. The result is a cinematographic, absurd-yet-realistic novel, driven by a playful, keenly observant, satirical, and cleverly crafted narrative that strikes the masterful balance to become a captivating, charming, and entertaining read.
За автора
Dimitar „Shosho“ Kotzev is a Bulgarian film and television director, scriptwriter, novelist, nonfiction author, and translator. He holds degrees in English Philology from Sofia University and in Cinema Directing from the National Film and Theater Academy. His first feature film, Lora from Morning Till Evening, based on his novel of the same name, came out in 2011. His feature film Monkey (2016) was also based on his screenplay. His second novel, Shrimp, was published in Bulgarian in 2015. Since then his third feature film, The Answer to All Questions, came out, and several theater plays that he produced and directed were staged.
За преводачката
Ekaterina Petrova holds an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Iowa, where she was awarded the Iowa Arts Fellowship. Her book-length translations
include Bogdan Rusev’s novel Come to Me (Dalkey Archive Press, 2019), the anthologies My Brother’s Suitcase, Fathers Never Go Away, and Stories from the 90s (ICU Press, 2020, 2020, 2023), and Iana Boukova’s poetry collection Notes of the Phantom Woman (co-translated with John O’Kane from the Greek and forthcoming with Ugly Duckling Presse in 2024). Her translations and nonfiction writing have appeared in Asymptote, Words Without Borders, The Southern Review, 91st Meridian, European Literature Network, Drunken Boat, EuropeNow, and BODY, among others. Her work has been supported by grants from PEN America, Art OMI, Traduki, Creative Europe, England’s National Centre for Writing, and the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation.
