Angel Igov (Landis&Gyr Artistic Fellowship Oct ‘24 – Feb ‘25) will present his work on:

A Communist Family: A creative nonfiction case study

13 February 2025 (Thursday), at 16:30

Moderated by Ahmed Nuri.

Abstract: While there is no lack of documentary and biographical literature treating the socialist period in Bulgaria, the perception of insufficiency remains, both among the specialized and the general audience. My aim is to employ creative nonfiction to tell the stories of a category of people who have rarely discussed their life experience, namely those members of the Communist Party who exhibited both ideological conviction and pragmatic life attitude but at the same time their interactions with the Zhivkov regime were far from peaceful. Their stories remain largely untold, a situation which does not entail a fuller understanding of the socialist period. My case study is based on my own family, which is representative of that category. My presentation will give a brief account of the lives of my grandparents as marked by their relationship with the socialist regime; I will also discuss certain moral dilemmas and contradictions that I find of major importance when approaching this topic.