This week we bring you news from Bulgaria and Hong Kong! In Bulgaria, Andriana Hamas recalls the brilliant life of poet and journalist Marin Bodakov, a significant contributor to Bulgarian letters, after his sudden death; Jacqueline Leung highlights the long-awaited return of the Hong Kong International Literary Festival and new book releases centered on personal and social struggles in Hong Kong. Read on to find out more!
Andriana Hamas, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Bulgaria
These past few weeks in Bulgaria have been marked by the sudden demise of the poet, literary critic, and journalist Marin Bodakov at age fifty. Born on April 28, 1971, in the picturesque city of Veliko Tarnovo, Bodakov studied Bulgarian Philology at Sofia University “St. Kliment Ohridski,” where he eventually earned his Ph.D. with a dissertation entitled “Policies of presentation of Bulgarian literature in the print media of the 1990s. Problems of Critical Autoreflection.” Moreover, he was an assistant professor at the Press Journalism Department, as well as a passionate advocate of the path towards a meaningful academic career. His talents were versatile, spanning such different spheres that it comes as no surprise that he also managed to maintain the weekly column, Ходене по буквите (Walking through the letters), published by the renowned Kultura newspaper. His original texts highlighting the best of both local and world literature would come out, without fail, even after the editorial team of Kultura dissolved and reunited shortly afterward as K Weekly. In recent years, Bodakov found a suitable writing platform in the independent outlet, Toest.
His first poetry collection, Девство (Virginhood), was followed by seven others, the latest published in 2018. Another prominent work he authored was Преведе от . . . (Translated from the original . . .), an enchanting volume that comprises of conversations with several Bulgarian translators. The interviews provide an invaluable glimpse into the profession and its “invisibility.” They equip the reader with a better understanding of the social and cultural trends that often play a decisive role by steering the literary scene in unforeseen directions. A year after the book was published, Bodakov received the Knight of the Book Award, granted to journalists and other prominent personalities who have contributed to the publication and promotion of books in Bulgaria.
The funeral service took place in the Seven Saints Church in Sofia and was attended by a large number of people who wished to pay their final respects to a man of letters whose inspiring legacy is truly immeasurable.
Jacqueline Leung, Editor-at-Large, reporting from Hong Kong
As with every November, the Hong Kong International Literary Festival is back with a full program showcasing writers from home and abroad. Entitled “The Rebound Edition,” this year’s festival focuses on resilience and recovery and is presenting new fiction and voices through fifty hybrid and in-person events.
On November 6, there will be a much-anticipated virtual panel on speculative fiction in translation. “Building Other Bodies” features five speakers, including two writer–translator pairs: Ta-wei Chi, who will be discussing his queer Taiwanese classic The Membranes with the novel’s translator Ari Larissa Heinrich; and Korean writer Bora Chung on her short story collection Cursed Bunny, recently released in English, with her PEN Award-winning translator Anton Hur. They are joined by Mona Kareem, poet and Arabic translator of Octavia Butler’s Kindred, to explore the challenges of translating the genre and how the different works portray physical, racial, and sociocultural identity. The festival also offers a strand of events spotlighting Hong Kong writing and the Cantonese language. Alice Chan Yuen Shan, Virginia Ng Suk-Yin, and Angus Lee will be reading from their latest works, while Char Kwok and Ka Ying Chow will be introducing @hk.dict, an Instagram page documenting Cantonese terms and the latest slang used in the city.
November also sees the release of Writing in Difficult Times, a bilingual essay collection by award-winning co-editors Nicholas Wong—also the translator of Sun Tzu-ping’s poems, recently published on Washington Square Review and Poetry Northwest—and Li Mei Ting. Writing in Difficult Times features personal essays by eleven emerging writers from Hong Kong about their commitment to their craft, in this city and elsewhere, despite personal and social struggles. Translated by Mary King Bradley, Kate Costello, and Ernest Ip, each essay is available in Chinese and English. Among the contributors, Leung Lee-chi wrote a short story translated by Jennifer Feeley and published on Two Lines in May, and Karen Cheung is expected to release The Impossible City, her debut memoir about growing up in Hong Kong and surviving the aftermath of its political strife, next February.
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