Review of Crookedness in The Poetry Review - London
The Singaporean poet Theophilus Kwek about Tsveta's poetry:
Tsvetanka Elenkova won the English PEN award for 2022 with her book Magnification Forty, translation is done by Jonathan Dunne, publisher is Shearsman Books.
The author is included among the voices from 19 countries (from Thailand to North Macedonia) in 18 languages thus ensuring that these voices can be heard outside their linguistic confines. Books are selected for PEN Translates awards on the basis of outstanding literary quality, the strength of the publishing project, and their contribution to UK bibliodiversity.
30 minutes on the American radio program The Middle Ground
Tsvetanka Elenkova gave an interview for the American radio Trafika Europe. The conversation was about her poetry and mysticism. Jonathan Dunne read poems from her future book dedicated to J.M.W. Turner. Fiona Sampson conducted the interview with high professionalism and deep knowledge.
The Spanish edition of The Seventh Gesture on the Spanish National Radio
In the program Rumbo al Este (Direction East) an hour was broadcast with the poetry of Tsvetanka Elenkova and the music of Theodosii Spassov. The journalist Maja Vasiljevic presented the poet with high erudition and enchanting timbre.
Tsvetanka Elenkova with Spanish Edition of The Seventh Gesture
It’s not every day that your poetry book comes out in Spanish with Vaso Roto Ediciones, in a translation by Reynol Pérez Vázquez and with a foreword by Manuel Rivas!
Tsvetanka Elenkova in Europe
Six poems by Tsveta from her book Magnification Forty were published in the established French literary magazine Europe, whose founder is the Nobel Prize winning author Romain Rolland.
The wonderful translation is by the poet Guillaume Decourt.
Tsvetanka Elenkova in New Humanist
Tsveta's poem from her book Magnification Forty - "Chocolate, Dark" - was published in the prestigious London socio-cultural magazine New Humanist, established in 1885. The literary editor is the prominent poet Fiona Sampson.
Wonderful translation by Jonathan Dunne.
Tsvetanka Elenkova in The Massachusetts Review
Tsveta's poem "The Train" was chosen for The Massachusetts Review's sixtieth-anniversary anthology.
The poem was chosen in the company of another 50 authors, representing 40 countries, and was the only one from vol. 56, no. 1. Wonderful translation by Jonathan Dunne.
Tsvetanka Elenkova received the prestigious award Pencho's Oak
Tsveta received the literary award Pencho's Oak 2019 for her poetic creativeness, given by the prominent literary critic Prof. Svetlozar Igov. She was previously nominated for other important prizes such as Hristo G. Danov for her translation of Speaking of Siva, Ivan Nikolov for her poetry books Crookedness and The Seventh Gesture II and Nikolai Kanchev for her poetry book The Seventh Gesture II.
Pencho's Oak is the only Bulgarian award without a financial aspect, but is highly appreciated because of its founder.
New book by Tsvetanka Elenkova
The Seventh Gesture II is a continuation of Tsveta's emblematic book The Seventh Gesture, published in 2005 and translated into three languages - English, French, Serbian - with many positive reviews in these countries.
The book was awarded the Pencho's Oak literary award in Bulgaria.
Tsvetanka Elenkova at Shearsman Books, UK
Tsveta’s fourth poetry collection, Izkrivyavane, was published in English as Crookedness by Shearsman Books, Bristol, 2019. This is the second edition of the book in English.
The British poet Fiona Sampson in the foreword calls her a religious mystic: "It is not Gerard Manley Hopkins’s search for ‘inscape’, but instead an apprehension that from moment to moment forms itself into symbolic codes – and then releases those codes into the material, sensual world."
Tsvetanka Elenkova at Corps Puce, France
Tsveta’s fourth poetry collection, Izkrivyavane, was published in French as Distorsion by Éditions Corps Puce, Amiens, 2018. Wonderful translation by Krassimir Kavaldjiev.
Jean-Pierre Gandebeuf writes in Recours au poème: "This book gathers everything into one, it holds it and hides it altogether. The world is whole and the words wind around it, try to unite it, to unite all this diversity, to make it our home, to give it order and life."
Tsvetanka Elenkova at Tertium Éditions, France
Tsveta’s third poetry collection, Sedmiyat zhest, was published in French as Le septième geste by Tertium Éditions, Vayrac, 2018. Wonderful translation by Krassimir Kavaldjiev.
For this book the publisher Mireille Veyssiere shares: "This is poetry with heavenly visions, which finds the divine in the banal, and death is placed at the very heart of existence."
Magnification Forty by Tsvetanka Elenkova
Tsveta’s fifth poetry collection, Uvelichenie chetirideset, was published in Bulgarian by Ergo, Sofia, 2016. Six poems from this book were translated and published in the prestigious French literary magazine Europe.
The book is accompanied by a deep and profound foreword by the prominent Macedonian poet Bogomil Gjuzel.
Tsvetanka Elenkova in UNESCO anthology
Tsveta's poem "Cherni Vrah" from The Seventh Gesture was chosen to represent Bulgaria in this important anthology published on the occasion of the International Day of Happiness and edited by the UN Society of Writers.
Wonderful translation by Jonathan Dunne.
Tsvetanka Elenkova in a book by John Taylor
A Little Tour through European Poetry is a book of reviews by the poet and critic John Taylor, exploring poetry by European authors from Portugal to Turkey. An article on Tsveta's book The Seventh Gesture represents contemporary Bulgarian writing.
John Taylor has previously written about Tsveta's books The Seventh Gesture and Crookedness.
Tsvetanka Elenkova translated Manuel Rivas
Tsveta translated an anthology of Manuel Rivas' poetry, The Disappearance of Snow. This book marks the beginning of a whole series of translations of Galician poetry by Tsveta, including names such as Rosalía de Castro, Chus Pato and Lois Pereiro.
Thanks to this series and many other books published by Small Stations Press, Galician literature has become well known to the Bulgarian reader.
Tsvetanka Elenkova wrote a book on Bulgarian frescos
Bulgarian Frescos: Feast of the Root is a book with 10 essays and 125 photos of frescos from Bulgarian monasteries of the fourteenth-nineteenth centuries. The book reveals the treasury of the Orthodox tradition from Sofia's Little Holy Mountain, whose monasteries were painted primarily by the monk St Pimen of Zograph.
The skilful photographer is Jonathan Dunne.
Tsvetanka Elenkova at Tebot Bach, US
Tsveta’s fourth poetry collection, Izkrivyavane, was published in English as Crookedness by Tebot Bach, Huntington Beach, 2013. This is Tsveta's second most translated book.
The critic John Taylor writes in The Arts Fuse: "Moreover, Elenkova’s “lightning shifts between mind and sense,” as poet Tom Sleigh puts it in his perspicacious introduction, underlie the meaning of the mysterious title. Initially, Crookedness seems to indicate the deviancy of the world within which one can nonetheless acquire moments of illumination."
Tsvetanka Elenkova edited an anthology for Shearsman Books, UK
Tsveta is the editor of the anthology At the End of the World: Contemporary poetry from Bulgaria, which includes 17 authors from classics like Nikolai Kanchev to contemporary names like Nikolai Atanasov. The translator is Jonathan Dunne.
This is the most prestigious anthology of contemporary Bulgarian poetry in English.
Tsvetanka Elenkova in Poetry Review, London
A poem from Tsveta's book Crookedness was published in the prestigious magazine Poetry Review, produced by the Poetry Society in London.
The poem is called "This Is It" and is dedicated to the song by Michael Jackson from his last concert in London. This is Tsveta's second publication in this important magazine.
Izkrivyavane by Tsvetanka Elenkova
Tsveta’s fourth poetry collection, Izkrivyavane, was published in Bulgarian by Stigmati, Sofia, 2011. This book was nominated for the major literary award Ivan Nikolov in Bulgaria. It has two editions in English - in the UK from Shearsman Books and in the US from Tebot Bach. It was recently translated and published in France by Corps Puce Edition.
This is Tsveta's second most translated book.
Tsvetanka Elenkova at Shearsman Books, UK
Tsveta’s third poetry collection, Sedmiyat zhest, was published in English as The Seventh Gesture by Shearsman Books, Exeter, 2010.
The book was widely appreciated in the UK - poems from it were previously published in prestigious magazines such as Poetry Review and Modern Poetry in Translation. The book was reviewed in magazines such as Absinthe and Poetry Review. In these editions her lyrical fragments are called "equations" and a "cinematographical experience". Sarah Crown writes in Poetry Review: "There’s a lovely clarity to her thoughts, which combines with the warmth of her delivery to produce an unusual, uplifting collection."
Tsvetanka Elenkova at Povelja, Serbia
Tsveta’s third poetry collection, Sedmiyat zhest, was published in Serbian as Rane od slobode by Povelja, Kraljevo, 2009.
This is the third language the book The Seventh Gesture has been published in, together with English and French. Wonderful translation by Velemir Kostov. In the literary magazine Yellow Cab the poetic fragments are described as a "poetic itinerary".
Tsvetanka Elenkova in Modern Poetry in Translation, Oxford
Six poems from The Seventh Gesture by Tsveta were published in the prestigious magazine Modern Poetry in Translation. They were included under the theme of this issue - Getting It Across.
The editors of the magazine were David and Helen Constantine. Wonderful translation by Jonathan Dunne.
Raymond Carver's poetry in Bulgarian
Tsveta translated an anthology of poetry by Raymond Carver called Luck. This is the first edition of his poems in Bulgarian.
The editor and author of the foreword is Jonathan Dunne.
The Seventh Gesture by Tsvetanka Elenkova
This is Tsveta's most translated book. You can read it in four editions in three languages - English, French and Serbian - with more to come. Dozens of poems from this book were published in magazines and anthologies in more than fifteen languages. The book received positive and interesting reviews in such literary magazines as Poetry Review and Stride in the UK and Absinthe in the US.
In his foreword to the English edition the translator Jonathan Dunne writes that "the most striking image of extreme eros and extreme pain is that of Christ on the Cross". The blurb of the French edition emphasizes that this is a mystical, cultural and refined book with death and eros at its centre.
Speaking of Siva in Bulgarian
Tsveta translated four bhakti poets, who wrote in the Kannada language. Their poems are all dedicated to the cult of Siva - an individual worship of the absolute divine essence. These poets were pilgrims who wrote their poetry in the tenth century. They give their god the beautiful metaphor "O, Lord, white as jasmine!".
This is the first and only edition in Bulgaria.
Vaso Roto publishing house, which published Tsveta's book The Seventh Gesture in Spanish, brought together its women authors with short films on the. Read more
Tsveta's latest essay "Hope - a promise of holiness" was published in the last issue of Christianity and Culture magazine. Read more
Three poems from "The Seventh Gesture" were published by Marco Vidal on his website for Bulgarian literature in Spanish. Read more
From September 19 to 23, the Eighth World Poetry Festival was held in Athens, where Tsveta was a guest. Read more
