Fani Popova-Mutafova

Fani Popova–Mutafova (Bulgarian: Фани Попова-Мутафова; October 16, 1902 – July 9, 1977) was a Bulgarian author who is considered by many to have been the best-selling Bulgarian historical fiction author ever.^[1][2]

Fani Popova–Mutafova

Biography

The daughter of Dobry Popov, an officer in the Bulgarian army,^[3] she was born in Sevlievo and was educated there, in Sofia^[2] and in Turin, Italy, where she also studied piano music.^[1] From 1922 to 1925, she studied music in Germany. She first published her work in the journals Vestnik na Zenata, Bulgarska misul and Zlatorog.^[2]

Her books sold in record numbers in the 1930s and the early 1940s.^[1] In 1936 she took part in the foundation of the Ratniks and was considered one of their main ideologists.^{[by whom?][citation needed]}

Popova–Mutafova joined the European Writers' League (Europäische Schriftstellervereinigung), which was founded by Joseph Goebbels in 1941/42.^[4]

She was eventually sentenced to seven years of imprisonment by the Bulgarian communist regime because of her writings (her alleged "pro-German allegiance"), and though released after only eleven months for health reasons (asthma), was forbidden to publish anything between 1943 and 1972.^[5] She translated books and plays from Italian for a living then.^[1]

She was married to another Bulgarian writer, Chavdar Mutafov [bg].^[6]

Popova-Mutafova died in Sofia at the age of 74.^[2]

Selected works

Source:^[2]

• Солунският чудотворец, historical novel (1929–30)
• Недялка Стаматова (1933)
• Дъщерята на Калояна (Kaloyan's daughter), historical novel (1936)
• Иван Асен II (Ivan Asen II of Bulgaria), historical novel (1936)
• Д-р П. Берон (Doctor Petar Beron, historical novel (1972)

Further reading

Krassimira Daskalova, "A Life in History," Gender and History 14.2 (2002), 321-39.

References

1. Jane Chance (2005). Women Medievalists and the Academy. Univ of Wisconsin Press. pp. 501–. ISBN 978-0-299-20750-2.
2. Wilson, Katharina M (1991). An Encyclopedia of Continental Women Writers. Vol. 1. pp. 998–99. ISBN 0824085477.
3. "Fanny Popova-Mutafova a novelist who left a gallery of vivid heroes of the past". Radio Bulgaria. November 2, 2012.
4. Ed. Hellmut Th. Seemann, Angela Jahn, Thorsten Valk: Europa in Weimar - Visionen eines Kontinents. Yearbook of the Classics Foundation Weimar, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8353-0281-5.
5. Harold B. Segel (1 November 2012). The Walls Behind the Curtain: East European Prison Literature, 1945-1990. University of Pittsburgh Press. pp. 11–. ISBN 978-0-8229-7802-2.
6. Tracy Chevalier (January 1997). Encyclopedia of the Essay. Taylor & Francis. pp. 589–. ISBN 978-1-884964-30-5.