Fedia Filkova

Yesterday our beloved friend and companion, poet and translator Fedia Filkova, died in Sofia after a long illness.

Traduki has to thank Fedia Filkova for countless acts of kindness. In her understated, sensitive and calm way she wholeheartedly supported the idea of literary exchange from, to and within Southeast Europe from the very beginning – the first tentative talks back in spring 2006. Whenever we reached out to her, she was there for us.

2013 saw the publication of a selection of Fedia Filkova’s poems in German translation. The volume, titled Nachtgras and published by Drava, was translated from the Bulgarian by Andreas Tretner who we thank for his precise and restraint translation, in distinct harmony and dialogue with its original.

Fedia Filkova also lent her own voice to the likes of Ilse Aichinger, Ingeborg Bachmann and Friederike Mayröcker in Bulgarian. For her translation work she was awarded the Austrian State Prize for Literary Translation in 1995.

She will be greatly missed by all of us.

 

Но аз съм свикнал винаги да губя

и острият момент не ме пронизва.

Николай Кънчев

СВОБОДА

Смирение –
най-неразбираемата дума от виски.
Някога си представиях единствено
едно унило мъжко лице
и сърце, което не смее да трепне.

После те срещнах
и знам:
смиреният человек е усмихнат
и сърцето му свети като мишена.

 

Федя Филкова

 

Loss was always part of the game

So I don’t mind that something else went missing.

Nikolai Kantchev

 

FREEDOM

Humility –
The vaguest word of all.
Back in the day I saw the image
of a depressed man when hearing it.
A heart that dares not tremble.

Then I met you
Since then I know:
The humble one smiles,
his heart shining brightly
like a target.

 

English translation by Barbara Anderlič