The Migrant Bookclub

While Prof. Grady makes delicious dinner, I'm lazily browsing through my archives and realizing that my most favorite entries and discussions here are about the books I've read or wanted to read.

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I am currently reading Aleksandar Hemon's The Lazarus Project (for some reason, it's taking me forever to get through it but a good book is worth the effort so I don't mind).

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I am preparing my notes on Cyndi Phoel's magnificent debut Cold Snap (set in mid-90s Bulgaria!!!)

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I've been missing you guys

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How about we start an international book club?!



We would call it The Migrant Bookclub. We would put together a list of books to read (I'd say, make sure those books have something to do with a) immigration, b) expatriation, c) negotiating multiple identities and/or d)Bulgaria), and agree to read a book a month together. There are so many amazing books that fall under one of these four criteria that I definitely don't think you need to be an expat/immigrant yourself to enjoy this (American Mom and Dr. J, I'm looking at you). At the end of each month, we would have a discussion about the book: whoever has a blog, would blog about it. Whoever twitters, would twitter about it. Hell, maybe we could do a live twitter chat with the author?

Let me know what you think: yes or no (YES, of course); how to go about it; which books to read. I can't wait to hear what you think!

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Photo by Remy Saglier

What do you love about the place where you live right now?

I write so much about Bulgaria and Bulgarians on this blog but, in my gut, that's not really what the blog is ABOUT. I really think of this place as a space dedicated to expatriation, immigration and the meanings and feelings we attach to those experiences.

Yesterday I was chatting with Lucy of PocketCultures about my post on what I like about Bulgaria and we thought it would be a great idea to open up that conversation to a larger audience.

What do you love about the place where you live right now?
If you are an expat, what do you love about your adoptive country?

Here's what Lucy says about Britain:

I'll go first: This poster - keep calm and carry on - sums up one thing I really like about Britain. The dog ate your lunch? Your house just collapsed? The financial system is 30 minutes away from meltdown? Keep calm and get on with your life. The first part of 'carrying on' usually involves making a cup of tea.

Awesome, no?!

Now let us know what you think. Leave a comment here or drop me a note on Twitter. Maybe at the end of the week, Lucy and I can put together a combined list of greatness!

You know you are Bulgarian when...

Miss Biliana painted a custom fashion print for me. I don't know which one but I hyper-ventilated over my first Marc Jacobs bag a few weeks ago and I'm guessing she might have picked up on that. Anyway.

Here's our email exchange from earlier today:

Miss B: Just a quick note to ask if you received your drawing, I sent it about ten days ago. I hope you like it if you did!

Petya: No! It's not here yet! How did you send it?! Shouldn't take that long...

Miss B: Hmmm, I sent it regular mail. It is not very big, I put it in a magazine. Let me know, the post office here said it should take about 5 to 8 (!) business days, so this sounds about right. Let me know, I wanted you to get it for Valentines Days since it is red....

As this was going on, I realized... shit, I'm responding in such a Bulgarian way to this. Don't you see it?! I panicked that the postal worker might have kept my package!!! When I shared my realization with Biliana, she said: I would panic the same way, this is why I am writing!

You know you are Bulgarian when anticipating a friendly package in the mail makes you anxious.

Guest Blogger: David Sedaris

I hope you're not getting tired of hearing me mention how awesome David Sedaris is. He is and I'm sorry. Really. I know that the world has been reading him for years. I myself had heard some of his NPR pieces and read some of his short stories in The New Yorker. It wasn't until just a couple of months ago that I actually picked up Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim.

Now, I don't think I can really speak to the literary merits of his work but I find Sedaris's reflections on expatriation very close both to my personal experience of being a foreigner and to my experience of building a relationship in an environment that presents both me and my husband with unusual challenges. That, I think, is the main reason I love him as much as I do.

The other day, actually, I thought it would be awesome if I could have Mr. Sedaris over as a guest-blogger. We would share embarrassing stories about our respective experiences as foreigners and laugh so hard until we were no longer able to distinguish whether we were being laughed with or laughed at. How awesome would that be?!

Also, since getting the actual David Sedaris to make an appearance on this wonderfully thoughtful blog is pretty much as likely as getting my own Dad to wear corduroy (chance=0), I think I'm going to turn a blind eye and blog in his name. I'm sure he wouldn't mind one bit. Also, he often mentions that he is such a Luddite that he hasn't actually seen the Internet yet, so I think I'd be safe.

Is Zadie Smith's new book a self-reflection guidebook for expats?

I sort of sounds like it is. Pankaj Mishra wrote a great review of Zadie Smith's freshly published book of essays, Changing My Mind. As a big fan of Smith's, I am crazy excited about this book. ESPECIALLY after learning that a number of Smith's essays deal with topics that I hold very close to my heart: the multiplicity of human identity, the ways in which our idealogical inconsistencies make us thrive, family, loss.

The idea that “the unified singular self is an illusion” could be the leitmotif of this collection. It allows Smith to revisit her own early assumptions and to question such essentialist notions as “black woman-ness.” Reflecting on Kafka’s ambivalence about his ethnic background, she writes: “There is a sense in which Kafka’s Jewish question (‘What have I in common with Jews?’) has become everybody’s question, Jewish alienation the template for all our doubts. What is Muslimness? What is femaleness? What is Polishness? What is Englishness? These days we all find our anterior legs flailing before us. We’re all insects, all Ungeziefer, now.”

This may sound a bit melodramatic. But then — as Salman Rushdie and other practitioners of postcolonial postmodernism have stressed — ambivalence, doubt and confusion are essential to forming dynamic new hybrid selves.

Sounds like a book that any expat would enjoy, doesn't it?

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Illustration by Tina Berning for The New York Times

Daily Routines

Kyle (who never leaves the house without a camera) says that people are mistaken about good photographers. He says that most of us think that professional photographers take good pictures because they are exceptionally talented or have super equipment. According to the Professor, even though talent and equipment are big factors, one of the most important reason why good photographers take great pictures is that they take MANY pictures EVERY DAY.

I don't doubt this because I've heard a lot of people say the same about writers. Good writers become excellent writers by writing every day.

Memphis Sunset.

So now I take a camera with me everywhere I go and try to write here more regularly. Hope you'll help me keep at it.

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Blogging and (expatriate) identity

I just came across this essay by Lauren Elkin on blogging and identity that somehow rang very true with me.

<5> It is not surprising that personal blogs flourish when the writer is in a new, challenging context. The encounter of the Self and the Other, the decision to leave the Familiar for the Unfamiliar, and the alchemical processes evinced on the already unstable, already susceptible being that is the Self provides potent inspiration and material. It can be a spectacular thing to read, the expat blog; a multimedia, hypertext travelogue; and it often attracts readers who are or who would like to be in similarly exotic and challenging situations.

<6> As Huston and Sebbah discover over the course of their correspondence, for the expatriate writer, foreign soil is often more fertile than that of their native land: there is something in the experience of being a foreigner that gives root to inspiration, which in turn produces writing like ivy wrapping itself around a tree. But all this organic literary production relies on the distance retained from the adopted land, as well as the distance from the place of origin.

<7> The same is true for the expatriate blogger. In order for the blog topics to remain compelling for the reader, I would argue that the blogger must not get too close or assimilate too deeply to the adopted culture. Everything depends on the blogger's ability to stand back and comment on what they see in such a way that they are still able to present it as interesting and fresh for their readers, and perhaps, by so doing, understanding and making the new experience part of themselves. Once blogged, the experience can be absorbed into the Self, which is always already in the process of conglomeration and transformation.

These observations are true not only in the context of blogging. I think that many immigrants and expats (what's the difference, does anyone know?) experience the same regardless of whether they choose to document it online or otherwise. How many of you feel more interesting, more interestED, more engaged with your surroundings when you are away from "home"? I know I do.

It's actually that very inspiration I derive from being a "foreigner" that makes me hold on to my Bulgarianness as tightly as I do. It has nothing to do with being from Bulgaria per se, I don't think. It's more about distancing myself enough from what's in front me in order to be able to fully enjoy it.

I'm curious to hear if that's what you've experienced as well.

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Image by Brian Coape-Arnold

Translating Tolstoy

Earlier today I came across Translating Tolstoy: an interview with Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky, the husband-and-wife duo behind some of the most beautiful translations of the Russian classics in the last couple of decades. Oh, my! I thought. These two are the superstars of mix-breeders!

Mr. Pevear, 66 years old, was born in Waltham, Mass., and initially translated works from French and Italian. His wife was born in Leningrad, Russia, and emigrated to Israel in 1973, where she lived for two years. The couple met in the United States in 1976 and married six years later. They've been translating books together since 1986. Ms. Volokhonsky provides the first translation of each work, with running commentary on the author's style; her husband works from that draft to render his own version. They then confer and work on that text together.

The interview is obviously focused on their work but as I was reading it I kept recognizing familiar patterns of interaction:

WSJ: How do you resolve your differences over the work, and do disagreements ever spill over into your personal life?

Ms. Volokhonsky: Richard is a native speaker of English. I'm a native speaker of Russian. My task is to explain to Richard what is happening in the Russian text. Then it is up to him to do what he can. The final word is always his. I can say this is not quite what the Russian says. Either he finds something that satisfies me or he says no, this is how we're going to do it. We discuss endlessly and sometimes it becomes a nuisance because we return to it again and again even after the manuscript goes off. But we really don't quarrel. It would be much more interesting if we did.

Kyle and I do that too. When I am moved or offended by an article, an email, or a comment on my other blog that was originally written in Bulgarian, I translate it to Kyle. Then: explain, explain, explain, go back and forth, explain. We do quarrel sometimes, though, and it definitely IS interesting.

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Seasons

Kyle just shared another photograph he took at the Black Sea last summer. What I love about his photos is that they all seem to capture the intimate ways in which people interact with nature: not completely aware of it, but not oblivious either.


The photo also reminded me of this passage from Toni Morrison's magnificent book Beloved:

In Ohio seasons are theatrical. Each one enters like a prima donna, convinced its prformance is the reason the world has people in it. When Paul D had been forcd out of 124 into a shed behind it, summer had been hoofed offstage and autumn with its bottles of blood and gold had everybody's attention. Even at night, when there should have been a restful intermission, there was none because the voices of a dying landscape were insistent and loud. Paul D packed newspaper under himself and over, to give his thin blanket some help. But the chilly night was not on his mind. When he heard the door open behind him he refused to turn and look.

Now, I just hope that some day those two get all bundled up, take a long walk around Sofia the day the first snow of the season has just fallen and the entire city is just FRANTIC, and at the end of the day return to our favorite bar and just... sort of... you know... chat about it. How awesome would it be to eavesdrop on THAT conversation.

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Photo Copyright: Kyle Grady

In place of a book review

Last night I spent two hours talking to our landlord Sylvia. Sylvia is in her 50s and immigrated to Germany from Tetovo (Macedonia) when she was 6. Naturally, we have a lot to talk about.

There have been many untimely deaths in Sylvia's family. Her own father passed away when he was only 34. Her sister's husband died at 48 after battling Hepatitis B for over 6 years, which he got from contaminated tubes at the hospital where he was voluntarily donating blood. A couple of years later, Sylvia's only daughter (only 12-years-old) was hit in a car accident and died.

At the same time, Sylvia is the sunniest, friendliest, warmest, strongest person you would ever meet. She tends to her garden and to those around her with utmost care. She said that when her daughter died, she felt she had to be strong for her nieces. Their Dad had passed away just a couple of years before and now their younger cousin was dead. I needed to show them that life could still be good for them, that it is not all bad, she said. So she continued to work, and garden, and travel, and read, and laugh, and grow the meanest roses in all of Freiburg.

Last night, as I was giving her a hug good-night, all I wanted to say to her was "Read Oscar Wao! Read Oscar Wao!".

Hanasiana

Kyle said that I am turning into a Memphis junkie. I have made it my primary goal in life to read and care about all things Memphis related. And, to be honest, it is not hard. It takes time but every search for cool Memphis stories is so profoundly rewarding that I don't mind the effort at all. Case in point: Jim Hanas's website.

Ever since I shared Jim Hanas's story about his time at Burke's Books, I have been reading his blog archives. Today I realized that I should just go back to his first entry and read it all, the way you read a book: page by page, in order, no skipping forward. I am also reading and LOVING his short stories and have promptly downloaded a copy of his free book, Single, which features a couple of previously published stories.

Jim is now my friend on twitter (are you?!) and I just found out that his reason for moving to Memphis in the first place was "philosophy". Hello!!! Could this get any more awesome?!

Read his stuff!!! You will love it!

Gratitude Journal

For several years now I have been keeping a gratitude journal. It's something I heard about from some schmuck on Oprah, decided to try out and found that it really helped me.

The idea of it is simple. Every day you write a list of five things you are grateful for. The hope is that by doing this, you train yourself to be optimistic, to think positive and learn to appreciate the little things in life. My lists of Good Things that you guys are familiar with is the online reincarnation of that very same thing.

I especially love my Gratitude Journal during stressful times. Graduate school was an especially prolific period, for example, and I held on to my journal like it was a safety vest. School was hard, life in State College even harder and I needed to constantly remind myself that I should really feel appreciation for the good stuff that WAS happening to me but seemed so easy to ignore. So I wrote my lists. My lists have grown a little bit cheesy since I met Kyle... lots of hugs and kisses and whispers have been dutifully documented. It's corny, I know, but it's actually those sweet nothings that HAVE made the bad days pass by and the good ones seem just perfectly fantastic!

I have recently started telling my friends that I do this. Many of them started writing their own journals and said that it helped them too. So I thought I'd share this with you guys too. I know it's a little bit wacky and new-agey and all... but I do swear it's a great exercise in humility and acceptance.... and it brings a whole lot of happy thoughts in one's life. And we all need that. So there.

MY flashlight is a blogger

Maud Newton is one of my Top 5 favorite online writers of all time. I started following her blog many years ago and her writing still gets me absolutely giddy about books and all things literary! When I heard that she would be coming to Penn State to be on a panel about blogging and the arts, I knew that I had to go see her.

Today not only did I attend the panel but I got to meet Maud in person and had a little conversation with her and she gave me a hug. I was so happy Kyle was with me so I could squeeze his hand all through the duration of the panel.

I felt like I was 7-years-old and just got a flashlight.