Emil Bassat was a guest at the fifth Ethnocafe event of the United in Diversity project, funded by the Financial Mechanism of the European Economic Area 2014-2021 under Program PA14 “Cultural Entrepreneurship, Heritage and Cooperation”, Output 3 ” Improved awareness of arts and culture of ethnic and cultural minorities (focus on Roma).
On the eve of the Day of Bulgarian Revivalists, Emil Bassat presented his new book of surveys “The joys and sorrows of Bulgarian bohemianism. Portraits of translators”, implemented with the financial support of the Ministry of Culture under the “Help for the book” program. It is a continuation of the author’s desire to cover the images of Bulgarian translators and the history of the translation work.
The event began with a provocation by Emil Bassat, who appeared in front of the audience with a scary mask, uniting the holidays of the Bulgarian Revivalists and All Saints. He read to the audience a short provocation text about the removal of masks in society.
Albert Benbasat, guest of the first edition of “Ethnocafene”, introduced the author and the edition. It focused on interesting and important moments of the creative biography of Emil Bassat and emphasized the thematic circles that the book forms. He also outlined the difference of the book from the previous ones – written under extraordinary conditions of a pandemic and through Internet conversations with the surveyed authors.
The “Ethnocafe” event was organized with the assistance of the Union of Translators in Bulgaria. Sabina Pavlova, head of the “Theory, History and Criticism of Translation” Section of the Translators’ Union, also joined the event. She presented excerpts from the interviews and suggested that the translators’ thoughts on translation be published in a separate book as a practical aid for students.
The writer Marin Georgiev, the chairman of the “Bohemian Club” Prof. Vladimir Penchev and the bohemian docent Dobromir Grigorov also spoke about Emil Bassat and Bulgarian bohemianism. Zhivko Kushev, manager of Paradigma publishing house, invited the author to publish his next book. “The Paradigm publishing house, like everyone, loves Emil Bassat,” he added. Some of the interviewed translators were also present at the event – Atanas Zvezdinov, Prof. Margarita Mladenova, Angelina Pencheva, Radost Zhelezarova, Yordanka Trifonova, Alexandra Trifonova. Guests of the event were also Ivan Totomanov, Nevena Panova, Zafer Galibov and others.















Photographer: Stefan Rangelov
You can watch the entire event on the National Library’s YouTube channel.