site.btaJune 16: Bloomsday, the Day of Ulysses and Its Author James Joyce

On June 16, Bloomsday is marked around the world. The day celebrates Ulysses, a novel by Irish writer James Joyce, first published in Paris in 1922, which left an enduring mark on world literature. The celebration takes its name from the book’s central character, Leopold Bloom, a 38-year-old advertising canvasser.

The novel is set in Ireland's capital, Dublin, and its action takes place over a single day - June 16, 1904. The book follows in meticulous detail the thoughts and experiences of its three main characters: Leopold Bloom, his wife Molly Bloom, a singer, and young poet Stephen Dedalus. The novel was inspired by The Odyssey, Homer’s epic poem recounting the ten-year journey of Odysseus, King of Ithaca, back to his homeland after the end of the Trojan War. Joyce fashioned his characters as modern counterparts to the heroes of the ancient epic.

Bloomsday was first celebrated in 1954 in Dublin to mark the 50th anniversary of the day described in the novel. The initiative came from publisher John Ryan, writer Brian O'Nolan, and poets Patrick Kavanagh and Anthony Cronin, who decided to retrace the steps of the novel's protagonists. Today, organized walking tours are held in the Irish capital, covering key locations featured in Ulysses.

Over time, Bloomsday has become an international literary celebration. Traditionally, admirers of Joyce mark the occasion by reading passages from Ulysses, staging theatrical performances, and wearing Edwardian-style clothing. Bloomsday was first celebrated in Bulgaria in 2005.

The first Bulgarian translation of the novel, by Iglika Vassileva, was published in 2004 (reprinted in 2011 and 2020). Her rendition has been praised as a genuine creative feat. She worked on Joyce's monumental texts while overcoming the immense challenges posed by his distinctive style, which abounds in puns, linguistic innovation, and thousands of cultural references.

The translation took approximately three years to complete, part of which was set aside for reading and studying the text. Vassileva translated roughly two pages a day. Asked about the most difficult aspect of working on Ulysses in a 2020 interview with www.kultura.bg, she replied: "To expand - if you like, to stretch - the Bulgarian language as much as possible, while at the same time taking care not to stray from the natural Bulgarian narrative expression and keep the meaningful charge of the language. Yet I would not call that the 'most difficult' part because once you begin to play with Bulgarian, you discover its enormous potential and flexibility. The most enjoyable and easiest part was this digging through the language - modern, old, even archaic Bulgarian - where every successful discovery brightens your day."

She does not regard Ulysses as her "most heroic" translation, but rather as the translation that, by challenging her, gave her the most both as a translator and as a person - the translation to which she is most grateful.

"The very process of overcoming its difficulties made me more of a translator," Vassileva said.

Her translation of Ulysses earned her the 2004 Hristo G. Danov National Award for Contribution to Bulgarian Book Culture in the Translated Fiction Category, the 2004 Bulgarian Translators Union Award for Best Translation from English, and the 2021 Special Grand Prix of Portal Kultura for "her exceptional mastery in translating James Joyce’s Ulysses".

Before devoting herself entirely to literary translation, Vassileva worked for twelve years at BTA. She pointed out in the same interview: "For me, BTA was a more valuable school than any subsequent training, even though I worked in the External Service Department, where I translated from Bulgarian into English. Translation is translation, whether direct or reverse. At BTA, however, the responsibility was enormous because you translated and immediately ran the story. You were entirely on your own: editor, proofreader, and everything else. And if you made a mistake, you could even cause an international incident. That is where I learned discipline, but above all to keep my eyes peeled at all times, no matter how simple the text seemed, and to interpret its meaning with great care."

Following is an English translation of a news item by which BTA's External Service covered the appearance of the novel's Bulgarian translation and the marking of Bloomsday's centenary in Bulgaria in 2004:

“James Joyce – Exhibition and Book”

Ulysses by James Joyce, Named Novel of Twentieth Century, Published in Bulgarian for the First Time

Sofia, April 20 (BTA) - An exhibition devoted to the life and work of world-renowned writer James Joyce will be on between April 21 and May 7 at the St Cyril and St Methodius National Library, the Embassy of Ireland in Sofia said.

The project, titled The International Joyce, marks the centenary of Bloomsday - the day on which the action of Ulysses takes place. The exhibition is scheduled to tour a total of forty cities around the world.

The first Bulgarian translation of Ulysses, by Iglika Vassileva, has been prepared for publication by the Fama Publishing House and Helikon Bookshops and is expected to hit the book market on May 5.

Polls conducted by the TIME News Magazine and Random House have singled out Ulysses as the novel of the twentieth century. It has been translated throughout the world, Bulgaria being one of the few exceptions so far. This was largely due by the difficulty of the text whose translation requires a level of mastery comparable to Joyce’s own.

Written between 1914 and 1921, the novel was initially serialized in literary journals in 1919. The complete edition appeared on February 2, 1922, Joyce's fortieth birthday. Ulysses was published in the United States in 1934 and in England in 1936.

The action of the novel unfolds over the course of a single day: June 16, 1904. Among Joyce's scholars and admirers, this day is known as Bloomsday, after the principal characters Leopold and Molly Bloom. The centenary of Bloomsday is marked in June 2004.

James Joyce was born in Rathgar, a suburb of Dublin, in 1882. His father was a small property owner and a committed supporter of Charles Stewart Parnell, leader of Ireland’s Home Rule movement, while his mother was a devout Catholic. Joyce attended Clongowes Wood College, one of Dublin’s elite Jesuit schools, where he won several academic honours. Financially constrained, the family was forced to move repeatedly to increasingly modest lodgings and neighbourhoods. In 1898, Joyce entered University College Dublin and, after graduating, left for Paris intending to study medicine.

What followed were years of exile, during which he produced the poetry collection Chamber Music, the short-story collection Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Ulysses, and Finnegans Wake. Joyce died on January 13, 1941 in Zurich. (Dahnyelle Dymytrov/BTA) /LT/.”