Stories of Old

Folklore and folklore scholarsip has been see as one of the ways to promote and develop national identities in the new independent states. They are also a link between the diaspora and their native culture. Thus many of the books on this blog happen to be translatios of folk tales.

Some Great Old Stories From the Old Country is a small book, only 35 pages, published in 2006 by Nettle Hollow.  The stories in this book are old stories from the oral folk tradition of Macedonia. They are fun to share with both young and old. 

The translator and illustrator is Michael Seraphinoff, is a scholar with degrees in anthropology and an M.A. in Slavic linguistics. In addition to this latest publication, Seraphinoff has written some academic books and papers, and has translated Silyan the Stork. 

You can buy this book from the Canadian Macedonian Historical Society and Amazon. 

Children's Novels

The project of the Macedonian Government for translating "130 volumes of Macedonian Literature" into English has finished and the books have been distributed to major National Libraries throughout the world. I had the pleasure of translating the Anthology of Children's Short Stories, edited by Petre Dimovski. There are three more books for children in the whole Project: two books of children's novels and one anthology of children's poetry. 

Children's Novels 1

Children's Novels 2

The cover was created by Kočo Fidanovski.



In this post I will present the two books of novels. The editor of Children's Novels is Svetlana Hristova Jocikj and the translators are Aleksandra Koceva and Marija Dimovska.

Check out if the library near you can provide these books and here is a quick link to the Library of Congress.


The books include pieces by authors:

The magic saddle / Vančo Nikoleski ; 
Bojan / Gligor Popovski ; 
Milosija / Kata Misirkova-Rumenova ; 
The white gyrsy boy / Vidoe Podgorec
Big and small / Boško Smaḱoski ; 
Salad days / Velko Nedelkovski ; 
Marta / Gorjan Petrevski ; 
The girl with two names / Jadranka Vladova ; 
The monastery bells / Kiro Donev

Even more folk tales

If you liked Tales from Long Ago here is one more book of fairytales from Croatia. Published in 2011 by Leykam International Zagreb, this book contains eleven folktales selected and adapted by Sanja Lovrenćič. The stories have been translated in English by Karen Butler, and the book is illustrated by Ivana Guljašević.

The book includes the following tales:
The cat and the fox
And the third son was a real bandit
The glutton
How a soldier became king
The rabbit, the bear, the man, and the fox
The servant changed the master
The rooster's company
The young man and the devil emperor
The little frog girl
The bridman and the black crow
The little fairy

If you want to check this book it's available from the Balkan Bookshop.