Deyan Enev
Deyan Enev’s Circus
Bulgaria promises exactly what its title suggests. A beautiful marionettist
hangs up her puppets and dons the costume of the cabaret while a drunken
lion-tamer trades in his lion for a handful of bills, an ex-boxer turned hit
man gives his life for his brother, and a boy with wax wings made from the
feathers of pigeons jumps from his window in an attempt to fly away. Haphazard
characters living in a post-communist Europe fill the pages of Enev’s fifty
short stories, all contributing to a collective understanding that freedom does
not guarantee happiness.
Circus Bulgaria is
seamlessly translated by Kapka Kassabova from its native Bulgarian into
English, expressing the satirical darkness of the original work with perfect
eloquence. Every short story in the collection is different in content, but
similar in tone. For instance, “The Marionette” tells a tale of a young girl
with a degree as a marionettist and no job. She searches
for a place to showcase her talents, and finally finds a shady man who is
willing to put her and her puppets into his club. She is happy until her first
show bores the crowd and the owner of the club tells her that she would be
better off dropping the act and presenting herself instead. In every story Enev
finds a unique way of telling a tale of hopelessness and forgotten dreams,
often with surreal and open endings. All of the stories clearly carry on past
the last lines, but what happens next is not shared with us as readers. All
that we are left with is a sense of abandonment and compassion for the sad
circus of figures that linger on the pages. None of the characters find happiness in the pages, and it is through this that they all relate to each
other in Enev’s grim flash fiction.
When I first started reading, I tried hard to find a
relationship between every story. Upon finishing, I realized that the
connection stemmed from this sense of hopelessness in the desolate world that every
character was destined to live in. The stories don’t offer a lesson to the
reader, but instead offer a truth. Sometimes, things just aren’t going to get
better. Sometimes, there is a darkness in the corners of a country that even a
promise of freedom cannot illuminate.
Great review. :)
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