A Short Tale Of Shame
By (Author) Angel Igov
Open Letter
Open Letter
21st May 2013
United States
General
Fiction
Fiction in translation
FIC
Paperback
156
Width 140mm, Height 215mm
221g
After deciding to take a term off from their studies to think about their plans for the future, school friends Maya, Sirma and Spartacus set of hitchhiking to the sea and onwards to the Greek island of Thasos. Along the way they meet Boril Krustev, a middle aged widower, who they recognise as a former rock star. As the four journey through the troubled Balkan states, old wounds surface as they reflect on their past, the politics of their land and overcoming the guilt and shame they feel about the turbulence of their relationships with each other.
"The stand-out moments of A Short Tale of Shame lie not in the resolution of the friend-love triangle, but in the characters' semi-mythical experience of the journey."Tom Faure, Numero Cinq "Like the best of Continental literature, Igov's short and haunting novel manages to be about everything and nothing at once."Publishers Weekly "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
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. Angela Rodel earned an M.A. 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.