At the bookshop where I work, he comes to talk to me about Spanish ships, hot-air balloons named after beasts, polar expeditions lost in mirrors. (And only someone in my line of work recognises that scent of damp bread and mustiness that books leave behind.) As time goes by, I realise that one of his eyes is glass. More specifically, one of his eyes is a glass marble, the sort known in my childhood as ‘gazes’. That is where all his misfortunes begin. On certain days, unnamed by meteorologists, the glass creaks with its ancient sands. A desert wind rearranges the lines of his face. He is left all alone; the shop window startles him, preventing him from stepping inside. ‘No, sir,’ I reply politely, ‘we don’t have books about Spanish ships. We sell blank paper.’
- Pages: 56
- ISBN: 978-960-8399-26-6
- Publication: 2006
- Dimensions: 17 x 24
- Categories: Literature, Books, Poetry
Yanna Bukova
Yanna Bukova is a bilingual poet, born in Sofia, Bulgaria. She has published three collections of poetry, two collections of short stories and a novel in Bulgarian.
She studied Classical Literature at the University of Sofia and has translated and published in her home country over ten books of contemporary Greek poetry, the complete surviving works of Sappho, the complete works of Catullus, and Pindar’s Pythian Odes.
Since 1994, she has been actively involved in the literary life of Greece. She is a member of the editorial team of the poetry magazine FRMK and the online platform Greek Poetry Now. She is involved in organising poetry performances and interactive reading events. She has worked as a literary critic and book presenter, and has written essays on issues of contemporary poetry and poetics.
Her poems and prose have been translated into twelve languages, including English, French, Spanish, Arabic and German.
Her books published in Greek include: *The Smallest Garden*, Ikaros 2006, translated by Dimitris Allos; *Drapetomania*, Mikri Arktos 2018; and *S*, FRMK 2021.
