|
|
 |
|
|
December 2, 2025
BODY, Prague
FOUR NEW
BULGARIAN POETRY BOOKS
IN TRANSLATION
By Drew Rollins
There is not another writer like Iana Boukova, and one need read only a few pages of Notes of the Phantom Woman for that truth to rattle home. Occasionally, Boukova’s moves bring other poets to mind—Monica Youn’s intellectual rigor and formal inventiveness, Rita Dove’s ability to somehow address all of human history in the space of ten lines, Robert Pinsky’s eye for the perfect searing anecdote—but the final product is entirely her own, and absolutely stunning.
Boukova is a whiz at pulling off one of my favorite poetic techniques: to present phenomena that seem unrelated, describe them poignantly, then evince their indisputable relationship. “The Evolution of Monsters in Children’s Literature” suggests that such relationships are almost unavoidable: “One of the most difficult things / to achieve is true randomness. / Numbers or events in a series / that do not form any pattern.” Everything is interconnected if you know how to look at it, which Boukova surely does. She tethers Scream to Duchamp, early hominins to sheep clones, String Theory to braised pork. In holding these (and other) concepts up—not only to the light, but also next to each other—she achieves a multiplicative effect, such that we understand them all better, and in deeper, more personal ways, than we otherwise might have.
More
13 March 2025
London Book Fair
PRESENTATION OF THE BULGARIAN
POET AND WRITER IANA BОUKOVA
and the translator Ekaterina Petrova in conversation with the
British writer and translator Christopher Buxton
London Book Fair 2025 will take place from 11th to 13th March. We are proud that for the second consecutive year, the Bulgarian Cultural Institute London will provide a stand for Bulgarian authors and publishers at this global book festival in London. To further showcase our literature, the Bulgarian Cultural Institute London is organizing a Month of Bulgarian Literature from February 13th to March 13th. During this period, some of the most prominent Bulgarian writers and poets will be presented along with their English-language publishers.
“Presentation of Iana Bоukova and the translator Ekaterina Petrova in conversation with the British writer and translator Christopher Buxton” is one of the most important events, organised by BCI London. It will take place on 13th March 2025 from 19:00 PM at Bulgarian Cultural Institute.
More
Capital:Light, Sofia, 7-13 February 2025
By Tamara Valcheva
HUMAN HISTORY IS FULL OF
WELL-CONSTRUCTED THEORIES
WITH DISASTROUS CONSEQUENCES
The triple premiere of Iana Boukova's poetry collection Black Haiku is not only a joyful event for Bulgarian poetry but also a rare success and recognition on the international stage. In Bulgaria, the beautiful edition is published by Janet 45, in Greek by Ikaros Publishing, and in English, one of the most prestigious and intriguing publishers in the U.S., Ugly Duckling Presse, released a collection that includes poems from Black Haiku as well as her previous collection Notes of the Phantom Woman. The Brooklyn-based American publisher is known for its focus on poetry, translations, experimental prose, performance texts, and books by visual artists. The translations from Bulgarian and Greek are by Ekaterina Petrova and John O’Kane.
Why did you choose this title?
Some of the themes in this book are truly difficult, dark: the violence of passing time on us and our loved ones, our helplessness in the face of others’ pain, the fragility of our defenses, and the vulnerability of the human body. Haiku poetry, on the other hand, is one of the brightest and most beauty-filled forms of poetry. The paradox in the title was intentional for me. I experience life as an unpredictable blend of terrifying truths and beautiful insights, where neither cancels nor erases the other. I wanted to convey that feeling in my texts. In my case, paradox, along with dark humor, is the means through which I speak about these things.
More...
21 January 2025
Asterism, New York
10 TITLES OF NOTE:
UGLY DUCKLING PRESSE
Annabel Jankovic, Los Angeles Review of Books
In descending, these last few wintry weeks and changes, into the backlists and new hits of Ugly Duckling, you could say I met the new year luxuriously. The Presse, with an e, are based in the remote township of Brooklyn, NY, in a 1800s-era brick building that produced, in an earlier America, tin cans. Taking a look, there's a lot to choose from and something for most every mood, need, and occasion: literature—namely, poetry—in translation; delicately-thread chapbooks; no insignificant number of "experimental" pamphlets (each demonstrating, with greater dexterity-dazzling than the last, the irrepressible fact: that literary theory is as formidable an art form as any).
Choosing a few favorites was my impossible task.
Notes of the Phantom Woman, doubly composed in and translated from Bulgarian and Greek, betrays a sticky, meaning-mining mind. In Boukova’s acts of constellating wide-ranging trivia—from the evolutionary answer of moths to the Industrial Revolution to Tarkovsky's early designs to film Stalker in the lands adjacent to the Chernobyl site to the guillotine's exerts on French fashion—I felt witness to a kind of poetics of information: something I feel fine calling a uniquely 21st-century possibility. One of my favorite pieces speaks of 16th-century philosopher-occultist Giordano Bruno, who posited (and burned at the stake for) an infinite theory of the universe: “stars,” he imagined, “were distant worlds, inhabited"—that “in each one there was a trial." Elsewhere, Boukova quarries the predicament most incomprehensible to us now: that for most of human time, before the advent of mirrors, "people lived without a clear picture of themselves."
More
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Sofia, 21 December 2024
By Tatiana Vaksberg
NOTES OF THE PHANTOM WOMAN
HOW YANA BOUKOVA’S BOOKS BEGAN SPEAKING
IN THREE LANGUAGES SIMULTANEOUSLY
She celebrated a triple book launch with works released almost simultaneously in Greece, Bulgaria, and the United States. In these and other countries, Yana Boukova seeks the same thing—communities that inspire and recharge.
Every achievement is worth telling, but what if the achievements come in threes? Yana Boukova finds herself in precisely this situation, unsure where to begin recounting her journey after her books were published simultaneously in Plovdiv, New York, and Athens. To start, she orders tea for two in a cozy café in Sofia.
Just weeks ago, the publishing houses Janet 45 and Ikaros released her new poetry collection, Black Haiku, in Bulgaria and Greece. At nearly the same time, Ugly Duckling Presse in the United States published her collected poetry under the title Notes of the Phantom Woman.
Ikaros is the exclusive Greek publisher of the country’s two Nobel laureates—George Seferis and Odysseas Elytis.
Ugly Duckling Presse is one of the leading American publishers of poetry, introducing U.S. readers to voices like Daniil Kharms.
More...
1 December 2024
BLACK HAIKU WITH A TRIPLE PREMIERE IN
NEW YORK, SOFIA, AND ATHENS
The new poetry collection by poet and writer Yana Boukova, Black Haiku, is making a triple debut: in Bulgarian, published by Janet 45, Plovdiv; in Greek, by Ikaros, Athens; and in English as part of the collective edition Notes of the Phantom Woman, published by the iconic New York-based Ugly Duckling Presse, translated by John O'Kane and Ekaterina Petrova.
Written in the aftermath of the pandemic and in the shadow of two wars, Black Haiku focuses on the fragility of all certainties, the cracks in security, the betrayals of habit, the blind spots of theory, and the panicked retreat of logic. It examines the terror of mortality and the boundless illusions we create to deceive ourselves. The book persistently explores reality both within and outside us, searching for poetic dynamics in dry information and metaphorical value in encyclopedic facts. It draws from the tragedy of the news and the flashes of daily life. Time, in all its manifestations—geological, historical, and biological—becomes an experiment, nourishment, and challenge. The themes also include the beauty of mental vulnerability and the physical imprint of memory on the body.
The first presentation of the Bulgarian edition will take place on December 10 at 6:00 PM during the “Meet and Greet with Autographs” with Yana Boukova at the Janet 45 booth, located on the 3rd floor of the National Palace of Culture (NDK) at the opening of the Christmas Book Fair.
Ugly Duckling Presse, New York
Жанет 45
Ikaros Books, Athens
14 November 2024
Janet 45, Plovdiv
BLACK HAIKU
ISBN: 978-6-191869-31-2
Publication Date: 14 November 2024
Written immediately after the pandemic and under the shadow of two wars, the poetry collection Black Haiku focuses on the fragility of all that is taken for granted, the cracks in security and the betrayals of habit, the blind spots in theory and the panicked retreat of logic, the terror of mortality, and the inexhaustible illusionist abilities we use to deceive ourselves. It persistently re-examines reality both within and outside us, seeking poetic dynamism in dry information and metaphorical value in encyclopedic facts, drawing from the tragedy of news events and the flashes of daily life. Time, in all its manifestations—geological, historical, biological—appears as experiment, sustenance, and test, while the beauty of mental exposure and the physical imprint of memory on the body are among the themes the book explores.
Black Haiku was launched in three editions: in Bulgarian by Janet 45 in Plovdiv, in Greek by Ikaros in Athens, and in English as part of the collection Notes of the Phantom Woman, published by Ugly Duckling Presse in New York, translated by John O’Kane and Ekaterina Petrova.
More
28 August 2024
Ugly Duckling Presse, New York
IANA BOUKOVA
NOTES OF THE PHANTOM WOMAN
ISBN: 978-1-946433-00-8
Publication Date: November 01 2024
Translated by John O'Kane, Ekaterina Petrova
With a near-compulsive insistence, Notes of the Phantom Woman addresses the question of what reality is and how we construct it. Ranging in subject from the presence of pigeons in the city, the dead ends of logic, how geological time becomes personal, and the boundary between statistics and Hell, the poems are connected by a rigorous inquiry into the illusions of thinking, the blind spots of utopianism, and the trouble with moral positioning. Results of such a task are—predictably—unpredictable; a healthy dose of black humor helps the poetry go down.
John O’Kane was born in New York City in 1940, majored in Classical Studies at Princeton University, then went on to do graduate work in Arabic and Persian at the American University in Cairo and the University of Tehran. As an independent scholar and specialist in medieval Sufism, he has translated eight volumes from Arabic and Persian, as well as five academic works from German that deal withIslamic history, mysticism, and Classical Persian poetry. For over fifty years he has been living between Amsterdam and the South of France with regular visits to Athens. In recent years he has become interested in modern Greek poetry and working closely with contemporary poets in Greece.
Ekaterina Petrova is a literary translator and a bilingual (English/Bulgarian) nonfiction writer, currently based in Sofia. She holds an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Iowa, where she was awarded the Iowa Arts Fellowship. Her literary translations and nonfiction writing have appeared in various Bulgarian and English-language publications, including Asymptote, Words Without Borders, European Literature Network, EuropeNow, The Southern Review, and Reading in Translation. Her translation of Iana Boukova’s novel Traveling in the Direction of the Shadow, which received a PEN/Heim Translation Fund grant, is forthcoming from New York Review Books in 2026.
More
© 2019 - 2025, Iana Boukova
Contact e-mail: bukova.iana(at)gmail.com
| | | |
