A Short Tale of Shame

May 21, 2013
novel | pb | 145 pgs
5.5" x 8.5"
978-1-934824-76-4

CO-WINNER OF THE 2012 CONTEMPORARY BULGARIAN WRITERS CONTEST

After deciding to take a semester off their studies to think about future plans, long-time friends Maya, Sirma, and Spartacus decide to hitchhike to the sea. Boril Krustev, former rock star and middle-aged widower who is driving aimlessly to outrun his grief, picks them up and accompanies them on their journey. It doesn’t take them long to figure out they’re connected to each other by more than their need to travel—specifically through Boril’s daughter, whose actions damaged each of the characters in this novel.

Co-winner of the Contemporary Bulgarian Writers Contest, A Short Tale of Shame marks the arrival of a new talent in Bulgarian literature with a novel about the need to come to terms with the shame and guilt we all harbor. (Read an Excerpt)

Translated from the Bulgarian by Angela Rodel

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About the Author: Angel Igov is a Bulgarian writer, literary critic, and translator. He has published two collections of short stories, the first of which won the Southern Spring award for debut fiction. Igov has also translated books by Paul Auster, Martin Amis, Angela Carter, and Ian McEwan into Bulgarian. He is currently getting his PhD in European Literature.

About the Translator: Angela Rodel earned an MA in linguistics from UCLA and received a Fulbright Fellowship to study and learn Bulgarian. In 2010, she won a PEN Translation Fund Grant for Georgi Tenev's short story collection. She is one of the most prolific translators of Bulgarian literature working today, and received an NEA Fellowship for her translation of Gospodinov's The Physics of Sorrow.

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“Exquisite!”
—Boston Review

“A Short Tale of Shame is a novel about the road, on the road, a Balkan road novel. . . . A stylish, marvelously-imagined book, winding around the footprints of John Banville’s The Sea.”
—Dimiter Kenarov, Kultura