Преходът като роман за порастването
The Transition as a Coming-of-Age Novel

Author(s): Ani Burova
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Bulgarian Literature
Published by: Софийски университет »Св. Климент Охридски«
Keywords: coming-of-age novel; transition;, autofiction; autobiography; childhood and adolescence; memory
Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on several Bulgarian novels published in the last decade in which the theme of the post-1989 transition is interpreted in relation to the plot of growing up, of maturation and the transition from childhood to adulthood. These are Anna and the Mountain by Nevena Mitropolitska, Made of Guilt by Joanna Elmi, Us Who Are Gone by Antonia Apostolova and Home for Beginners by Emanuil Vidinski. The article examines these works as representative of a specific trend in literary interpretations of the transition where the image of the 1990s is constructed out of the experience of childhood and childhood memory. In all four novels, the biographical experience is of central importance, as they are autofictional, autobiographical and lay emphasis on personal history. The paper highlights the specific poetic and narrative means characteristic of the abovementioned literary trend. The analysis leads to the conclusion that within its framework, the fictional portrayal of coming of age in the 1990s relies on a discernible set of stable narrative patterns. The image of the Transition itself as created in these works is similarly stable and homogeneous, dominated by the idea of the period as a time of chaos, misery, personal and social decay.

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