Mahala Talks | Radical Imagination

What is to be a writer during periods of global turmoil? What is the role of the author in times like these, when the cynics seem to be controlling narratives, and as the line between fiction and nonfiction becomes harder to see?

Mahala Talks comes back on 23th March to the bookstore. Our very own GG (Graham Griffith) sits with the journalist and writer, and one of the most prominent young literary voices,- Joanna Elmy to discus and see the world as it is and as it might as well be. 

Joanna Elmy is a Bulgarian-born writer and journalist. Her debut novel received the most prestigious Bulgarian prize for emerging literature in 2022 and was shortlisted for several other national awards. Elmy was the recipient of the Per Aspera ad Astra scholarship for literature and became an Elizabeth Kostova Foundation fellow in the 2019 edition of the Sozopol writing seminars. She lives between the United States and Bulgaria, where she is the founder of a project aiming to modernize the Bulgarian literary canon and to improve access to literature and literary knowledge. 
Joanna is a columnist in Deutsche Welle – Bulgaria and VIJ cultural magazine, and works as an author and project manager at the independent Bulgarian weekly Toest. Her journalistic work focuses on communication and international politics, with a preference for the long form and a more literary, human-centered approach to journalism. Her literary criticism, interviews, and essays have also appeared in The Literary Journal, Capital Weekly and other national newspapers and magazines.