For Bulgaria, this represents a fresh striking literary success within a short time span. In 2023, the International Booker Prize was won by another Bulgarian writer, Georgi Gospodinov and US-born translator from Bulgarian to English Angela Rodel, for the novel Time Shelter.
Like She Who Remains, this was originally published in Bulgarian by the Janet 45 publishing house and then internationally promoted by the Sofia Literary Agency.
Karabash was the only Balkan and indeed, Eastern European, writer nominated for the Booker this year.
Her novel was also championed by the UK pop star of Albanian descent Dua Lipa who featured it on her online book club. “I thought I knew everything about Albania, but it took a Bulgarian writer, a Bulgarian translator and a small British independent publisher and an international prize for me to find this story,” Lipa recently said.
There was another interesting recent case of a Bulgarian artist connecting with a story from the Western Balkans last year, when singer and model Iva Yankulova released the song Admira – The Last Juliet of Sarajevo.
This honoured the real-life tragedy of young lovers Bosko Brkic and Admira Ismic, one a Serb, the other a Muslim, who were shot dead in May 1993 during Bosnia’s 1992-5 war.
“I’m not sure why local artists are reaching out more to the Balkans, but we know that the whole region has a bit of a collective trauma going on and maybe we can compare it to a family that had many internal conflicts but it’s now rising above them,” Karabash observes.
“Maybe we have a bit of a patriarchal attitude to bigger powers, if we have to get psychological about it, like we don’t feel like we have to engage with other cultures that also feel somehow small and repressed.
“I was recently promoting the book in Thessaloniki, where the subject about why we know so much about faraway countries but not what’s happening in neighbouring countries came up again,” she recalls.
Karabash released a new book of poetry earlier this year. As well as being a writer, Karabash has acted in the Golden Leopard-winning 2016 movie Godless, by Ralitsa Petrova. She was the screenwriter behind the 2025 Bulgarian TV series “We, the Waves”.
International recognition of Karabash and She Who Remains has meanwhile lifted the spirits in the country, coming right after Bulgaria won the Eurovision Song Contest with the song Bangaranga, by pop singer Dara.
Both women have put an international spotlight on Bulgarian culture and entertainment at a time of political turmoil in the country itself.
“There’s an increased international interest in Bulgarian culture, which comes as an alternative to the political news, which often is essentially negative, such as all the ‘Has a new Orban arrived?’ rhetoric,” Karabash says, referring to speculation about the foreign-policy orientation of the new government led by ex-president Rumen Radev.
“Through literature and music, and culture in general, we have the biggest asset to promote the country in a better light,” she concludes.
