SMALL STORIES

She likes to write notes—
“I love you” to her husband,
“I’m thinking of you” to her child,
“Thank you” to her mother.
It’s a little ludicrous actually,
but her loved ones don’t speak of these things,
even pretend
they’ve never
discovered anything in their pockets.
Still, she’s been doing this a while—
since the day
she read somewhere
that a woman jumped from the fourteenth floor,
and in her pocket there had been a note
with the words—
“five eggs and a loaf a bread.”

Author: Olya Stoyanova

Translator: Katerina Stoykova

from the anthology Season of Delicate Hunger (ed. Katerina Stoykova), Accents Publishing 2014

Olya Stoyanova was born in Sofia, Bulgaria. She graduated in Journalism and Mass Communication from Sofia University, where she is a PhD candidate. She is the author of four books of poetry: Photographs (2000), Prose (2002), Road map (2003) and Street “Happiness” (2013). Stoyanova’s first novel, Personal Geographies, was released in 2005. She is the author of one short stories book –  What Do Wolves Dream (2011) and non-fiction book A Guide to Wild Places (2011). Her poetry collection Street “Happiness” won the 2013 National Award Nikolay Kanchev and the 2013 National Award Ivan Nikolov for Poetry Book of the Year. Olya has won several awards from prestigious national competitions for poetry, prose, drama, and journalism. In 2012, her play Invitation to Dinner won first prize in the drama contest at Theatre Sofia and was staged in 2014. This play won the 2014 National Award Askeer for Best Dramatic Text of the Year. 

Katerina Stoykova is the author of poetry books in English and Bulgarian, most recentlySecond Skin (ICU, 2018, Bulgarian) and the bilingual Bird on a Window Sill (Signs, 2017, English and Bulgarian). The Bulgarian edition of How God Punishes was published by ICU in 2014 and won the Ivan Nikolov National Poetry Prize. Katerina is the editor and the main translator ofThe Season of Delicate Hunger: Anthology of Contemporary Bulgarian Poetry (Accents Publishing, 2014). For six years she hosted the literary radio show Accents on WRFL 88.1FM. In 2010, Katerina launched the independent literary press Accents Publishing. Katerina co-wrote the independent feature film Proud Citizen, directed by Thom Southerland, and acted in the lead role.

Photo credit: Contemporary Bulgarian Writers; Katerina Stoykova

This blog post is part of #BulgarianLiteratureMonth.