| Georgi Tenev | |
|---|---|
| Born | 9 October 1969 Sofia, Bulgaria |
| Nationality | Bulgarian |
| Occupation | novelist, short story writer, playwright |
Georgi Tenev (born 9 October 1969, Sofia, Bulgaria) is a Bulgarian novelist, short story writer, playwright and film/TV screenwriter.[1]
Major topics in Tenev’s works are the cultural and ideological void in the post-totalitarian societies and the consequent emerging of counter-cultures; the fall of utopias and the social amnesias. Recurring narratives in his novels and plays are also quasi-religion and disbelief, barbarism and revolution, the Holocaust, problem of evil, theodicy. In his recent writings he often addresses environmental issues.
His collection Holy Light (Altera, 2009) is a book of science fiction short stories featuring mainly issues of political correctness/incorrectness and biopolitics treated in a provocative way: racism, ownership over human’s reproductive functions, sexual difference, discrimination, violence. Other topics addressed in the story collection are pain and eroticism and different political and cultural values attributed to sexuality. In 2010 translator Angela Rodel was awarded with a PEN Translation Grant to support the translation of the book.[2]
Tenev’s novel Party Headquarters (Altera 2007) deals with the social paradoxes of the post-communist Bulgarian society. The key metaphor here is the Chernobyl disaster. It won the Vick Foundation Award for Novel of the Year (2007).[3] "Georgi Tenev examines the most recent past by avoiding taboos and using distinct words - it is a philosophical dealing with memory which uses powerful imagery." [4]
In August 2011 "Returning to the Hague" [5] from the Holy Light collection was published in the online edition of Granta.
Books by Tenev include:[6]