Introduction: Translating a Small Literature to the Global Market. The Bulgarian Case and Beyond

Abstract

The A. presents a group of papers on the issues of translating a small literature to the global market. To the question of how a “small” literature (more especially here Bulgarian literature) can achieve international success, he answers from the perspectives of a number of habituses in the field of literary production and consumption. A “small” literature can gain international success through: individual talent (especially for marketing); irrational struggle against market and geopolitical ra- tionales; intellectual maturing of the original literary field; inventing a label to combat the inertia of the international literary field (or a clever instrumentalisation of the proclivity to produce and consume exoticisms); dislocating itself from an interliterary community that cannot offer the necessary support of a cultural capital; inciting the existence of a suitable interliterary community and relocating itself therein; improving education in humanities; conducting responsible state policy; abandoning the illusion that “the world republic of letters” can be independent from the economy of maximizing profit; refusing to subject to the judgements of the dominant literatures.