Wolf Hunt

by Ivailo Pretov

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Pub Date May 16 2017 | Archive Date Mar 13 2017

Archipelago Books | Archipelago

General Fiction (Adult) | Literary Fiction

Description

Published in 1986, three years before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Wolf Hunt was the first novel to portray the human cost of Communist policies on Bulgarian villagers, forced by the government to abandon their land and traditional way of life. Darkly comic and tragic, the novel centers on an ill-fated winter hunting expedition of six neighbors whose history together is long and interwoven. The ensuing story takes the reader on a voyage of shifting perspectives that places the calamitous history of twentieth-century Bulgaria into a human context of helplessness and desperation.

Advance Praise

• "An explosive mixture of patriarchy and communism, suppressed secrets and broken destinies in a remote Bulgarian village. Hidden traumas send six men on a final hunt - in which they themselves might turn out to be the game. A novel that grabs you by the throat and brings out the wolves in all of us." -- Georgi Gospodinov

• "A novel about memory - about witnessing and exposing the past.... All of contemporary Bulgarian prose comes out of this novel, whether it admits it or not." -- Georgi Grozdev

• "An explosive mixture of patriarchy and communism, suppressed secrets and broken destinies in a remote Bulgarian village. Hidden traumas send six men on a final hunt - in which they themselves...

Marketing Plan

Targeted galley mailing to comparative literature professors, especially those with an interest in Bulgarian literature

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Reading Group Guides, both hard copies and on our website

Targeted galley mailing to comparative literature professors, especially those with an interest in Bulgarian literature

Advertising in Harper's Magazine, Brick, and Bookforum

Reading Group Guides, both...

Available Editions

EDITION	Other Format
ISBN	9780914671701
PRICE	$20.00 (USD)
PAGES	300

Additional Information

Average rating from 7 members

Featured Reviews

John A, Reviewer

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http://www.themodernnovel.org/europe/europe/bulgaria/ivailo-petrov/the-wolf-hunt/
http://www.themodernnovelblog.com/2017/05/17/ivailo-petrov-%d1%85%d0%b0%d0%b9%d0%ba%d0%b0-%d0%b7%d0%b0-%d0%b2%d1%8a%d0%bb%d1%86%d0%b8-wolf-hunt/

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Mandy J, Reviewer

What a marvellous introduction to Bulgarian literature this is. I started it a little tentatively, as it opens with a group of peasants in a pub, all with strange nicknames and seemingly rather eccentric, deciding to go out on a wolf hunt during a fierce snowstorm one wild night in 1965. But this is not a comic novel about amusing villagers. There’s occasional humour in it, but the lives of these villagers is ultimately a tragic one, and the book is an unrelenting depiction of the destruction of their village through forced collectivisation after the Communist takeover after WWII, when they are forced to abandon their centuries-old traditional way of life for the new Soviet reality. Six characters go out on the hunt and through their multiple perspectives and voices, the backstory of each is filled in and we learn of the links, often unhappy ones, which bind them. It’s a long and densely written novel and I found it took a while to enter into their world but once I did I was fully invested in their stories and was carried along, not least by the increasing tension that the author cleverly maintains right to the end. A complex book, admittedly, but accessible and engaging, and a valuable insight into mid-20th century Bulgarian history.