A Moment Short of Perfection: Selected Poems of Kristin Dimitrova
AUTHOR
Kristin Dimitrova
TRANSLATOR
Tom Phillips
Dimitrova suggests through vivid, sometimes ironic imagery that our life is imperfect, but we don't have a better one.She seems to want to stop time, to make us notice how important the things we consider trivial or coincidental truly are; to remind us of the inexplicable mystery we are part of; to gently suggest that we return the love of those close to us; to offer us snapshots of our fleeting sensations; to bring back the sharp awareness of the pain that comes with life's transience. Her poems subtly remind us that life, while it still flows, is imperfect — and the moment short of perfection is precisely what we should be grateful for.
Reviews
“Pellucid summonings of the sensuous world, distilled renditions of human precarity, compassionate encounters with proximate loved ones and far-flung fellow pilgrims-through-creation alike: Kristin Dmitrova’s poems are a treasure trove of insight and largeness of spirit. They are also, in these elegant translations by Tom Phillip, quite simply beautiful poems. For English speaking readers, this volume is a gift: our introduction to one of Bulgaria’s most luminous lyric voices.”
—Linda Gregerson
“I was immediately impressed by Kristin Dimitrova.here was something very refreshing about her work. She has a quirky, often dark humor, and writes in a low-key minimalist style, constantly reversing expectations.”
—Gregory O’Donoghue, Irish Examiner; Weekend
“Kristin Dimitrova is a contemporary Bulgarian minimalist, a feminist-fabulist whose work combines the fantastic and the prosaic. She of one of the most original writers to emerge in recent years from the "New Europe." She writes with a deceptively simple, playful, light touch, teasing the reader with faux-folk-wisdom and unexpected, bathetic endings. Oblique, subtle and witty, her poems creep up on her subjects from behind, demonstrating that looking at something sideways is not the same as avoiding the issue."
—Andy Croft, Morning Star
Kristin Dimitrova (1963, Sofia) is a poet, writer and translator. She is the author of eight books of poetry and six poetry selections, two novels, and three short stories collections. Books by Dimitrova have been translated and published in the UK, Mexico, Ireland, Switzerland, Chile, India, Belarus, Romania, and Czechia. Dimitrova holds a doctoral degree in journalism and mass communications. She is a winner of seven awards for poetry, four for fiction, and two for poetry translation from English. Works by her have been translated into 29 languages and published in 38 countries.
Tom Phillips is a UK-born writer, translator and lecturer living in Bulgaria where he teaches at Sofia University. His poetry has been widely published in journals, anthologies, pamphlets and three full-length collections while he has also authored around 20 plays produced in the UK. His translations of Bulgarian poetry have also been widely published. Prior to moving to Bulgaria, he worked as a journalist for arts magazine Venueand taught at the universities of Reading and Bath Spa. He has a degree in English Literature from Cambridge University and a PhD in creative writing from the University of Reading.