Orwell in Bulgarian

Kleri Kostova-Balcer

describes how she came to write

George Orwell: In the Footsteps of the Prophet

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I think that every intelligent and honest person in the world who appreciates democratic values, who is for freedom of speech, who is against totalitarianism and absolute political control is a follower of Orwell. Such a person is undoubtedly on the side of the victims of propaganda and misinformation and is an opponent of double thinking, the suppression of individual freedom and the trampling of the truth. I am proud to be such a citizen and writer. George Orwell’s work has always been attractive to me, as well as to thousands of worthy Bulgarian citizens. There were years under socialism when Bulgarians did not have an access to his ideas at all, years when censorship imposed restrictions. Bulgaria was for many years under the oppression of a regime that is described so talentedly in Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four. Many people saw themselves in the nightmarish world of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Today, however, all of George Orwell’s books and most of his articles and essays have been published many times, along with Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and We by Yevgeny Zamyatin. Although Orwell’s works had not been studied in Bulgaria as extensively as in Great Britain, people know the writer and admire him. What is missing, however, is the knowledge of the writer’s life and help interpreting his work. Just a single monograph was published more than 10 years ago in Bulgarian – George Orwell by Gordon Bowker – and that is all. Obviously, there was a gap.

My idea to write a book about Orwell arose a few years ago at the stand of “Fama 1” publishing house at a book fair in Bulgaria. “Fama 1” had published almost all of Orwell’s books. However, at that particular moment, Nineteen Eighty-Four was sold out, much to the disappointment of the attendees and thus a new edition had to be published without delay. We discussed this phenomenon with the publisher.

Suddenly, an image of a mural by the street artist Pure Evil popped into my mind. The mural is positioned at the beginning of the pier in the town of Southwold, in East Anglia. It portrays Orwell in front of a BBC microphone. I had passed by many times, but never realized why it was there. It turned out that the last home of Orwell’s parents – Montague House – was in Southwold. That’s how the idea of writing a book about Orwell arose. The wish of the publisher, in order to satisfy the interests of the general public, was for the book to be written in a popular style and not just a dry biography. So, I followed in the footsteps of Orwell, the places where young Orwell lived and worked. I travelled to Paris, visited his monument in London and many other places, finally ending my journey at his grave. During that time I had the honour of meeting Orwell’s son – Richard Blair and also Quentin Kopp, to whom I am extremely grateful for adding new touches to my narrative.

My book is a docufiction and is essayistic in style. It does not pretend to be a pure biography. It is also a reflection of my own research into Orwell’s work in relation to the historical context and particularities of the era. I encountered many mysteries and paradoxes in the life and work of the writer. I tried to introduce different versions and interpretations of the famous maxims and phrases to the reader, and to show what is hidden behind them. As a result, my book could have been equally named “On the trail of Orwell’s mysteries – the enigmas of his life and works”.

Some of the questions I asked in my book are: Do the clocks really strike 13 and why? What does the first sentence of Nineteen Eighty-Four mean? Who is Big Brother? Who is Julia? Why do the bells of St. Clement Danes church play the song “Oranges and Lemons”? And also: Was Orwell a glutton and a drunkard? Was he a prophet or a saint? How does Orwell’s artistic timeline differ from the real time in which he lived and our time today? And what is the significance of mixing the time periods?

The questions I try to answer are endless. What I have discovered for myself is that it is a real privilege to write about Orwell. It is a rare pleasure and a superior intellectual adventure.

My book George Orwell: In the Footsteps of the Prophet was released 2 months ago. In that short time it aroused great interest in my country. Articles, presentations and excerpts appeared in the Bulgarian Telegraph Agency, the newspapers “Dnevnik”, “Slovoto Dnes”, “Meridian”, “BG Ben – London”, the website of the Union of Bulgarian Journalists, the magazine “Libra”, and in interviews on Euronews Television and the National Bulgarian Radio.

In September of this year, my book was presented to a full audience at the “Alley of the Books” fair in the capital of Sofia, Bulgaria and also at the Club of the Bulgarian Journalists.

My book, the only one representing Bulgaria, was included in the catalogue of literary works about Orwell, created by the prominent writer and researcher from Australia – Darcy Moore, who won the 2024 award of the Orwell Society, of which I am also a member.

Among the hundreds of books about Orwell, there are only a few women writers, including me, a fact of which I’m very proud.