This is a short interview with Kiril Bozhinov regarding his collection of short stories called Eclipses (Beyond Art Production)
Did you have a collection in mind?
No really, I don’t think it is that easy to sit down and decide ‘I am writing a collection of short stories that will be published in a book called …’. Writing short stories defies that pre-ordained concept of literature. I think that is one of the main characteristics that make the whole process of composing them enjoyable and unpredictable.
What are the links between the stories, why did you feel they should be in a collection?
There are not any obvious links in terms of ‘idea’ or a ‘message’. There
Why are the participants’ characteristics, by the norms of standard fiction, not well defined? They resemble shadows or reflections …
That’s correct, they are shadows, or more precisely they are shadows of mannequins projected on a wall. They walk, speak, breathe and feel with intensity that defies walking, speaking, breathing or feeling. One of the stories is called Mr Jones and in a way, all the characters in the stories are Mr Joneses, people with common names, common traits, the absolute majority, not the chosen few, neither the downtrodden few.
Seven of the eight stories are very similar in terms of length
This is a coincidence, I guess because I wrote them kind of one after the other. I had the idea of bringing them to the exact number of words, and I felt that would be like
performing plastic surgery on different bodily parts at the same time.
What were the main influences when writing these stories?
Besides literature, I’ve been influenced by painting and especially by comics. Onomatopoeia in comics is something I always found fascinating. Also the fact that heroes never die, I mean when you thought they’ve died and some pages after they are ready to go on saving the world or helping the fight against universal injustice. Really impressive and inconceivable.
(See Kiril's blog HERE.)
Did you have a collection in mind?
No really, I don’t think it is that easy to sit down and decide ‘I am writing a collection of short stories that will be published in a book called …’. Writing short stories defies that pre-ordained concept of literature. I think that is one of the main characteristics that make the whole process of composing them enjoyable and unpredictable.
What are the links between the stories, why did you feel they should be in a collection?
There are not any obvious links in terms of ‘idea’ or a ‘message’. There
Why are the participants’ characteristics, by the norms of standard fiction, not well defined? They resemble shadows or reflections …
That’s correct, they are shadows, or more precisely they are shadows of mannequins projected on a wall. They walk, speak, breathe and feel with intensity that defies walking, speaking, breathing or feeling. One of the stories is called Mr Jones and in a way, all the characters in the stories are Mr Joneses, people with common names, common traits, the absolute majority, not the chosen few, neither the downtrodden few.
Seven of the eight stories are very similar in terms of length
This is a coincidence, I guess because I wrote them kind of one after the other. I had the idea of bringing them to the exact number of words, and I felt that would be like
performing plastic surgery on different bodily parts at the same time. What were the main influences when writing these stories?
Besides literature, I’ve been influenced by painting and especially by comics. Onomatopoeia in comics is something I always found fascinating. Also the fact that heroes never die, I mean when you thought they’ve died and some pages after they are ready to go on saving the world or helping the fight against universal injustice. Really impressive and inconceivable.
(See Kiril's blog HERE.)
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