Join us for a discussion about the liminality of small literatures with established writers and translators from Bulgaria, Ireland and Scotland.
How do Jim Mackintosh, Eilís Ní Dhuibhne, Stefan Ivanov and Dimitar Kambourov play out (and outplay) their origins? Is the tilted stance of their writing a side effect or a deliberate position? Do they artistically monetize their marginality, their interests, their upstandingness – both figurative and literal? Or do they really care? Are concerns about literary maps and margins not already outdated? Is it not already provincial to be obsessed with provinciality in the global village of world literature?
Did you know?
You can read Stefan Ivanov’s specially commissioned poem, presented in its original Cyrillic script and in translation as part of our Hidden Letters trail of poetry alongside the benches-letters in the outdoor grounds of St John’s Church.
The Hidden Letters benches are designed by the Bulgarian artists and architects Cyrill Zlatkov and Ivan Ivanov in the shape of letters from the Cyrillic alphabet offering new outdoor spaces for resting and reading, complete with poems by outstanding Bulgarian writers, including Georgi Gospodinov and Stefan Ivanov.
Hidden Letters first launched in Sofia in 2018 and since has toured to Berlin, Paris, Budapest, Plovdiv, Munster, Rabat and Brussels. Edinburgh is its first UK destination and in the post-COVID-19 pandemic it aims to reclaim our outdoor public spaces for poetry activism and multiculturalism.
Stefan Ivanov (b. 1986) is the author of four collections of poetry – “4 Seconds Violet” (2003), “Ginsbеrg vs. Bukowski in the Audience” (2004), “Lists” (2009) and “Inwards” (2014). He also writes plays. His works have been nominated for and awarded with national and international prizes.
Jim Mackintosh is a Perth-based poet and has authored six collections of poetry, most recently Flipstones (Tippermuire Books, 2018). He is poet in residence at St Johnstone football club, and champion of all things Willie Soutar, Hugh Millar and especially Hamish Henderson.
Eilís Ní Dhuibhne is an established and awarded Irish writer who writes fiction in both English and Gaelic; a former lecturer in Creative Writing at UCD. Her latest books are Little Red and Other Stories (2020)and Look! It’s a Woman Writer (editor) (2021).
Dimitar Kambourov is Associate Professor of literary theory at Sofia University. Lector of Bulgarian Studies at Trinity College, Dublin, and author of Явори и клони (Sycamores and Branches) (2003) and Българска поетическа класика (Bulgarian Poetic Classics) (2004). He co-edited Men in the Global World (2003), Pro Art/Арт Про (2007) and Bulgarian Literature as World Literature (Bloomsbury, November 2020).
How do Jim Mackintosh, Eilís Ní Dhuibhne, Stefan Ivanov and Dimitar Kambourov play out (and outplay) their origins? Is the tilted stance of their writing a side effect or a deliberate position? Do they artistically monetize their marginality, their interests, their upstandingness – both figurative and literal? Or do they really care? Are concerns about literary maps and margins not already outdated? Is it not already provincial to be obsessed with provinciality in the global village of world literature?
