A confession on the border of daily imagination. A story of true love, comprising life and death, free will and the heaviness of hope. This, in a nutshell, is what the novel The House of Clowns is about, for which Bulgarian writer Galin Nikiforov has received the Elias Canetti National Literature Prize.
In 2005, Rousse Municipality and the International Elias Canetti Society set up the award in honour of the 100th birth anniversary of Nobel writer Elias Canetti, who was born in the Danube city of Rousse. By tradition, on the eve of 1 November, Enlighteners' Day, the organization awards Bulgarian fiction writers and playwrights. Awarded a statuette made by artist Maya Koubratova, Galin Nikiforov joined the community of prominent Bulgarian writers, such as Konstantin Iliev, bearer of the International Herder Prize, Alek Popov and Ivaila Alexandrova.
“They are people politically and socially engaged in the present”, said Prof. Penka Angelova, chairperson of the International Elias Canetti Society in Rousse. These writers carry the spirit of interculture- something that corresponds to Canetti’s works.”
Two jury panels worked together to nominate a winner out of 50 books published for the first time in Bulgaria in the period 30 May 2009- 30 May 2011. Eight writers were nominated, with their works being presented at an official ceremony during the 4th edition of the Canetti contest in Rousse.
“The list of nominated books for 2011 includes The Street of the Butterflies by female writer Kerana Angelova, Zincographer by Vladislav Todorov, The Apocalypse Comes At 6 p.m. by Georgi Gospodinov, The Exit by Vladimir Zarev, Project Dostoevski by Radoslav Paroushev, The Motorbike, Romulus the Great by Itzhak Finzi and Green and Gold by Silvia Choleva. I’d like to stress that it’s prestigious to be nominated for an Elias Canetti Award. Therefore, many of our writers participate in various international contests, with this nomination at hand”, said further Ms. Angelova.
It was also revealed that three of the nominated books were being translated into German, with a literature reading coming in Vienna in two weeks’ time. Georgi Grozdev, one of the top writers nominated for the Canetti Prize for his novel Prey, is going to be presented at the literature event.
English version: Vyara Popova
