From KRISTIN DIMITROVA, poet (Bulgaria)
I was deeply concerned to learn that Arc Publications had lost the financial support of Arts Council for 2012.
It was Arc who published in 2007 A Balkan Exchange: Eight poets from Bulgaria and Britain (featuring W.B. Herbert, Andy Croft, Linda France, Mark Robinson, Nadya Radulova, Georgi Gospodinov, VBV, and myself, Kristin Dimitrova), thus mapping, in the words of the editor W.B. Herbert, "a singular encounter between two groups of poets, one based in the Bulgarian capital Sofia, the other in the North East of England". It is always a risk to present new authors to a market and although each of the Bulgarian poets has already had various translations abroad, some real enthusiasm and belief in the quality of the texts was necessary in order to introduce them to the British reading audience. And Arc Publications had them.
As it happened, A Balkan Exchange evolved into something more than a volume of verse, it became a dialogue between cultures. This year its sequel, Four kinds of North (Altera Publishers, forthcoming 2011), will appear on the Bulgarian bookmarket, presenting substantial selections of the British poets translated by their Bulgarian colleagues. A book launch at the Sozopol Arts Festival is being planned.
Since A Balkan Exchange came out, Smokestack Books, whose founding editor is Andy Croft, has published Kino (2007), the translations of Bulgarian poet Nikola Vaptsarov with an introduction by Georgi Gospodinov, and My Life in Squares (2010), a selection of my own poetry into English, while Nadia Radulova has been preparing for publication a book of poems by Linda France.
It all started with A Balkan Exchange, published by Arc. My poetry and fiction have been translated into 22 languages (25 countries) so far, but I especially cherish my participation in this book and everything that came with it. It would be too sad if other authors are deprived of the opportunity I feel privileged to have enjoyed.