This study analyzes the social significance of prefaces with reference to Bulgarian editions of American literature published between 1948 and 1998. Such prefaces present a diverse body of texts, in different voices, involving numerous actors in the cultural sphere. These raise a range of interesting questions. How do prefaces in Bulgaria structure American literary and cultural studies? What ideological dimensions are found in them through the communist period and immediately afterwards? How are questions about “race” mediated? What do they indicate about Bulgaria’s relations to the USA, the former USSR and other European countries? How aware are American Studies scholars of the underlying presumptions of their professional field? These and other important questions are carefully considered in this book, while exploring a large body of fascinating source material which has received little systematic attention so far.

Essays on William Faulkner's work from foreign perspectives

The Red Pencil (1989) examines the many ways in which Soviet censorship interfered in the creative process – in the words of those who experienced it first hand. It helps to identify the ways in which Soviet artistic and intellectual production was shaped by the practices of Soviet censorship. The book goes beyond the simple recounting of banned books and taboo subjects to examine the more subtle issue of how Soviet writers attempted to strike a balance between accommodating the demands of government censorship while retaining for themselves a modicum of unfettered expression and intellectual integrity. Most of the contributing authors were active as writers, critics, editors, film and theatre specialists, or scientists prior to their departure from the Soviet Union in the 1970s.