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Thursday

четвъртък

Bulgaria

Zdravka Evtimova

He loved me as a sparrow loves its little chicks—not with a mind, for what mind could love twenty-five pots of lard—he loved me with the blood that spilled onto the sidewalk.

Thursday is a novel about the fate of Eastern European societies after the fall of the Berlin Wall, as well as about individuals who, in new life circumstances, struggle to understand the world and find their place within it. Through the lives of five female protagonists, it reveals the residue that has accumulated at the bottom of society during Bulgaria’s prolonged transition.

While the poor lack money for food, healthcare, and housing, those who have appropriated wealth find no satisfaction in their hollow and senseless abundance. The author crafts a modern, fragmented narrative in a language that precisely reproduces the speech of representatives from different social groups—from security guards and outsiders to intellectuals struggling to make ends meet, and insufferable snobs.

Zdravka Evtimova (1959) is a novelist and short story writer, widely regarded as one of the most prominent figures in contemporary Bulgarian prose. She is also known as a translator from English, French, and German. She has translated more than thirty novels from English into Bulgarian, and has also translated numerous works by Bulgarian authors into English. To date, she has written nine novels, among the most notable of which are Thursday, Luka, The Same River, and The Green Eyes of the Wind, as well as seven short story collections. For her works—translated into more than twenty languages—she has received all major Bulgarian literary awards, along with several international prizes. Her novel Thursday, which received the Union of Bulgarian Writers Award, has been published in the United States, China, Italy, North Macedonia, and Serbia.

Zdravka Evtimova is the Honorary Chairperson of the Bulgarian PEN Centre.