Tag Archives: Stiliana Milkova Rousseva
The Novel as Oracle and the Voice of Women Writers: Nadia Terranova’s “The Night Trembles,” Translated from Italian by Ann Goldstein
Nadia Terranova’s 2022 novel “The Night Trembles” (Trema la notte), translated in English by Ann Goldstein for Seven Stories Press (2025), gives voice to Barbara and Nicola, a young woman and a boy whose parallel plot lines develop against the background of a catastrophic natural disaster – the earthquake that decimated the cities of Messina and Reggio Calabria, on each side of the Strait of Messina, on December 28, 1908. Terranova, a contemporary Italian writer from Messina, has been mapping in her narratives the topographies of trauma – personal and collective – of her hometown and her native Sicily.
A Postmodern Historical Novel Reimagines 15th-century East-West Politics: Vera Mutafchieva’s “The Case of Cem,” Translated from Bulgarian by Angela Rodel
Long before postmodern historical novels such as Italo Calvino’s “Invisible Cities” (1972), Umberto Eco’s “The Name of the Rose” (1980), Christa Wolf’s “Cassandra” (1983), and Salman Rushdie’s “The Enchantress of Florence” (2008) captivated readers with their imaginative, thoroughly researched, and carefully plotted recreation of the past, there was Vera Mutafchieva’s “The Case of Cem” (1967).
Workshop Notes on Reviewing Nataliya Deleva’s “Four Minutes”
This post features a cluster of reviews of Nataliya Deleva’s novel “Four Minutes,” translated from Bulgarian by Izidora Angel. This post also reflects on the principles and practices guiding a new college course on the art and craft of the translation review essay.
Reading Natalia Ginzburg in the Twenty-First Century
The increased visibility of Natalia Ginzburg’s translated works and renewed engagement with her literary production speak to the traumatic realism of our own historical moment as we look for modes of resistance and survival. Ginzburg’s works, generated in part from the traumatic events that marked her own life, narrate in turn the minor and major hardships of human existence.