This year’s ‘13 Centuries of Bulgaria’ Literary Criticism Competition and Workshop, organised jointly by the ‘13 Centuries of Bulgaria’ National Endowment Fund and the Literaturen Vestnik [Literary Newspaper] Foundation, has come to its conclusion.
The competition was launched in 2012 with the financial and institutional support of the Fund in partnership with Literaturen Vestnik, with the aim of encouraging and stimulating the occupation of literary criticism (whose deficit has been constantly noted and discussed for years in the cultural milieu), but also to provide opportunities for the performance, and often the debut of young authors in the current crisis, where its negative effect has had its strongest impact.
A three-member jury including Assoc. Prof. Ani Burova, Emanuil A. Vidinski and Assoc. Prof. Maria Kalinova nominated the following ten essays for the Grand Prize. The texts are available on the pages of Literaturen Vestnik, under the heading of the ‘13 Centuries of Bulgaria’ Competition:
Georgia Spadoni, The Revelation of the Human
Galabina Zaharieva, Through Natalia Ivanova’s Binoculars
Ivana Peneva, ‘The Interruption of Samsara’ by Elena Aleksieva
Mihaela Ilieva, The Mystery of the Crime Novel in the PRB [People’s Republic of Bulgaria]
Anna-Marie Georgieva, To Be Merciful to Others Means to Be Merciful to Yourself
Margarita Burmova, ‘The Defeated’ by Teodora Dimova: a Platform for Pain and a Pedestal of Hope
Paulina Damyanova, Books Read Aloud in the Bomb Shelter
Martina Drumeva, A Modern Tale of the Young Returnee and the Big Wineskin
Tsveta Bilyarska, ‘Autumn Easter’ by Petar Chuhov
Alexandra Koleva, ‘The Zanzibar Wife’: Between Cliché and Originality
The winner of the tenth Grand Prize, with its cash award of BGN 400, is Ivana Peneva for her review, ‘“The Interruption of Samsara”, by Elena Aleksieva.’
The applicants who submitted their essays receive, according to tradition, an invitation to take part in the creative workshops held at Literaturen Vestnik’s editorial office. The newspaper’s editors, as well as established critics from different generations, are involved in the workshops to offer professional advice to young authors, but also to engage in critical debate in discussing the specific narratives.