The newest novel by Olivera Nikolova - “The Dog With Sad Look” is magnificently faithful to her model of novels based on “preparation”, research, submission of a seemingly ordinary sheet of paper which, inherently, in its own facts opens up as an entire ficticious literary city, like in those picture books whose pages turn into castles or other three dimensional miracles. Only seemingly as any other, “The Dog With Sad Look” is exactly that kind of ficticious city emerging from the sheet of paper put inside “My Balcan Diaries” by Dr. J.Johnston Abraham. Nikolova does not try to conceal this memoire book, on the contrary, she begins her novel with it, expressing her gratitude to her author and naming her entire novel only as an echo of his memories.

Olivera Kjorveziroska

Towards the end of 2018, the translation of “Variations on Ibn Pajko” into Serbian and Bulgarian was almost simultaneously published in Belgrade (“Archipelag”) and Sofia (“Izida”). This novel, sofar translated into Russian and Czech, has been chosen by the international foundation Forum of Slavic Cultures as part of the project “Hundred Slavic Novels” whose purpose is exchange among the Slavic-speaking countries, creation of wider basis for understanding of the Slavic traditions and cultures, as well as creation of opportunities for the Slavic literature to be better known in the non-Slavic world.

Translator of “Variations on Ibn Pajko” into Serbian is Miroslav Mrkovic, and into Bulgarian Danica Prodanova.