This year International Booker Prize goes to Bulgaria: Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov, translated into English by Angela Rodel (review coming up soon). Rodel is currently based in Bulgaria, where she is also a teacher at the American University, therefore connected to the local literary realities.
After shortlived moments of excitement after the fall of communism and some empathy during the Balkan wars, this region is again in an intellectual shadow. Most representatives of the region that do enjoy a certain notoriety, like Aleksandar Hemon do not live there any more and do have a different stage to express themselves.
Since International Booker Prize was launched, in 2005, to award books in English translation published in the UK or Ireland, there was only one other winner from the region, Ismail Kadaré. Another author from the region, Josip Novakovich, was shortlisted.
Some may say that no matter the prizes, the authors in this part of the world will keep writing. However, the reading world is much poorer when those books are ignored. Where are the Romanian, Serbian, Croatian, Albanian, Slovenian, Macedonian or Bosnian? Reading the books in original is always a pleasure but if they can reach a wider audience, even more readers will be pleased. And I am not only talking about fiction, but thriller and crime novels, memoirs and poetry, science fiction and children books.
But I also know that talking and complaining without trying to do anything to make a chance is not how I want to spend my life. Trying to be more focused on authors and works from under-represented realms may change this. Many books and one prize at a time.
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