{"product_id":"traveling-in-the-direction-of-the-shadow-isbn-9798896230830","title":"Traveling in the Direction of the Shadow","description":"\u003cb\u003eThe fates of eight characters in the nineteenth-century Balkans intertwine in this metafictional book of strange quests and nested narratives for fans of Italo Calvino and Jorge Luis Borges.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA woman who reads the future in the faces of her lovers, a dice-player whose unfailing luck becomes a curse, a manuscript illuminator who leaves his monastery to become a most fearsome bandit. Set in the Balkans in the nineteenth century, \u003ci\u003eTraveling in the Direction of the Shadow\u003c\/i\u003e follows eight characters—all defined by a quest, all marked by a hidden, often torturous talent—whose fates become inextricably interwoven. One of the characters, novelist Ian van Athen, may even be the progenitor of all the rest—although reality has a way of defying fiction, and vice versa, and van Athen soon discovers not even he is immune to the undeniable logic of story, to the twists and turns of his own fate…\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eRich with classical allusions and nested narratives that recall the fictions of Calvino and Borges, Iana Boukova’s enthralling novel about the pleasures and perils of storytelling appears here in Ekaterina Petrova’s masterful translation, and is imbued with all the beauty and unexpectedness of poetry.\u003cb\u003eIana Boukova\u003c\/b\u003e is a Bulgarian poet and writer. She is the author of two short story collections and five poetry books, most recently \u003ci\u003eBlack Haiku\u003c\/i\u003e. Her poetry collection \u003ci\u003eNotes of the Phantom Woman\u003c\/i\u003e, which received the National Award for most outstanding book of Bulgarian poetry, was published in English by Ugly Duckling Presse in 2024. Boukova has a degree in Classics; she is the translator into Bulgarian of Sappho’s fragments, the collected poetry of Catullus, and \u003ci\u003eThe Pythian Odes\u003c\/i\u003e by Pindar. She lives between Sofia and Athens.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eEkaterina Petrova\u003c\/b\u003e is a literary translator from the Bulgarian and a bilingual nonfiction writer, currently based in Sofia. She holds an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Iowa, where she was awarded the Iowa Arts Fellowship. Her work has appeared in \u003ci\u003eAsymptote\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eWords Without Borders\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eEuropean Literature Network\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eEuropeNow, The Southern \u003c\/i\u003eReview, \u003ci\u003eReading in Translation\u003c\/i\u003e, \u003ci\u003eExchanges\u003c\/i\u003e, and elsewhere\u003ci\u003e.\u003c\/i\u003e Her translation of Iana Boukova’s poetry collection \u003ci\u003eNotes of the Phantom Woman\u003c\/i\u003e (co-translated with John O’Kane from the Greek) was published by Ugly Duckling Presse in 2024. Her translation of \u003ci\u003eTraveling in the Direction of the Shadow \u003c\/i\u003ewas supported by the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation, Art Omi, the National Centre for Writing, the Giancarlo DiTrapano Foundation, and a PEN\/Heim Translation Fund grant.","brand":"New York Review Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48233798140133,"sku":"NP9798896230830","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/traveling-in-the-direction-of-the-shadow-isbn-9798896230830","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}