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Aylin Lazova from Radio Bulgaria on her debut poetry collection "The Dying out of Betelgeuse"

"... can you imagine us being a family in the Universe"

Photo: Instagram /svetofar.sofia

She is an educated, young woman passionate about astronomy and physics, but has also devoted her energy and talent to the word. She is part of the family of the Bulgarian National Radio's foreign-languages program Radio Bulgaria and today we proudly present to you her debut poetry collection "The Dying out of Betelgeuse". 

She is Aylin Lazova, whom the followers and listeners of the Greek-language program of Radio Bulgaria know well as a voice and translator. Aylin was born in November 1994 in Burgas, she is in love with the sea, loves books since she was little and is fascinated by the domestication of foreign cultures and languages,

The young Bulgarian girl graduated from Modern Greek Philology at Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski", and Radio Bulgaria and more specifically the Greek language department has been her professional home in recent years. Her love for learning foreign languages ​​appeared while still at school. First with the acquisition of English, and then with Italian.


"I really liked it, it's a very beautiful language (Italian - ed.). It's not as popular here in Bulgaria as English, German, Russian, for example, but it's a language with very ancient roots, originating from Latin as a direct descendant. And then, when I touched Greek, we already understood that this is certainly my language. Because besides its beauty, it has even more, in my opinion, history in itself, even more antiquity. Literally every word has its own legend. When I found out about the science of etymology, I was captivated by how incredible it is to study the origin of words. And that even the most everyday Greek words can have roots in Greek mythology, in the texts of Homer, even in the Bible, and these are words that Greeks use even today, in everyday life. And besides, Greek is an international language that has presence in most European languages.

Aylin is convinced that as Balkan languages, Greek and Bulgarian have a lot in common, although at first glance it's not obvious. And she specifies that their grammatical structure is indeed very common, which is in her favour as a translator. At the same time, she defines the speech of the Hellenes and its modern vocabulary as "one infinite language".

She defines her work as a challenge that she has always wanted to deal with. In addition to the daily social, political and cultural materials that Radio Bulgaria offers to its audience, Aylin Lazova also translates poetry. And not as much as she would like. And she is quick to tell about the very "daring" Greek poets who are not translated into Bulgarian, but it's worth it, because, in her words, Bulgaria's southern neighbor has great poetry that is still not well-known in Bulgaria. A goal for the future is to publish her own book with translations of some of her favorite authors.


"For many years, people have been telling me that it is very difficult to translate poetry, and I have always felt it to be something very pleasant and interesting. A good translator of poetry must be able to feel what the author felt, to know him well from the beginning, his work, the motivation he had for writing this poem. And if the translator manages to have the same feeling, it means that he is also a poet in his essence and has a very good knowledge of the language," Lazova reveals her professional philosophy.

The poet in her was born in her childhood years in Burgas, with the first sincere and not so refined verses. She does not remember her first publication, but she remembers well her first participation in the National Youth Poetry Competition "Veselin Hanchev" in Stara Zagora, from which she has been awarded many times over the years. This is the place that meets her with a community of like-minded writing people. People who encourage her to read more contemporary poetry, to write her own and, most importantly, to publish it. One of these people is Anna Lazarova and Georgi Gavrilov, who support her in publishing her first collection of poems "The Dying out of Betelgeuse".

"The book has been thought about for a very long time, prepared for a very long time, mostly because of my perfectionism. There are poems inside that are from ten years ago, simply because, in order to get to the moment of publishing a book, I wanted to be sure that I had written the best, that I had edited it and polished it to perfection as much as I could. I wanted it to express what I feel and with the best that I could write so far. And when everything was ready in my opinion, I turned to my publishers. There are many topics in the book – Greek mythology, and poems about family, there are also those on deep topics that interest me, like death, for example. I have always loved asking myself the hardest, most fundamental questions, which is why I have a great interest in physics. Questions like "How did the universe come into being?", "What is time?", "Why has this universe been expanding?"... Questions that even scientists in the field cannot answer exactly and which are more philosophical than scientific. But I have always wanted to answer exactly such questions and my way is through poetry."


Words in which we also find an answer to the question of choosing the title of Aylin's book - "The Dying out of Betelgeuse". Betelgeuse is a red supergiant that has burned all its hydrogen fuel in its core and, according to scientists, is a star on the threshold of its final stage of existence waiting to explode in a Supernova and then go out. The editor of the poetry collection is Anna Lazarova, the cover is by Yana Georgieva, and the book itself is published with the financial support of the National Fund for Culture under the "Debuts" project.

"I think everyone needs poetry in their everyday life, but they have to find their own poetry that matches their emotionality. I would be very happy if people found something of their own in my poems, or something new, or managed to feel the world the way I felt it and tried to recreate it," says Aylin Lazova and addresses the audience of Radio Bulgaria with the words:

"Dear listeners, I wish you a lot of poetry in your everyday life!"


Photos:  Instagram /svetofar.sofia, Facebook /KICK's, Facebook/Aylin Lazova

English publication: R. Petkova


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