“Draft:The Black Box”的意思、由来-开放百科全书

The Black Box is a fictional novel written by Bulgarian novelist Alek Popov, which was initially published in 2007 in German by Zacharyi Stoyanov Publishers, initially titled Die Hunde fliegen tief, later coming out in English in 2015, through Peter Owen Publishers^[1]. The novel has also been translated into Serbian, Turkish, Polish, and Italian.^[2]

Characters

Plot

The Black Box begins in 1991 with the arrival of a strange black box to the Banov residence in Sofia, Bulgaria believed to contain the ashes of a Professor Emmanuel Banov. Fifteen years after this brothers Nedko and Angel Banov still cannot believe their father is dead. By this time Nedko, now referred to as Ned, is a successful consultant and in a very lucrative position for a major firm in New York. His brother, Angel, joins him in America after winning the green-card lottery and his failure to forge a publishing company in Bulgaria. Believing he lacks the skills and drive to become what his brother refers to as a “Successful Bulgarian Abroad”, Angel finds a job with a dog walking industry. Ned is soon after sent back to Bulgaria on a business trip, looking to locate a high-ranking member of his firm after he had seemingly cut all ties to his business. Ned finds the mysterious Mr. Kurtz, surrounded by a cult of the proletariat waxing on about the protean nature of money and its constant presence. Returning to America, Ned is pulled into the center of a dog walkers’ union battle between Angel and the leader of the Union, Merle. It culminates into a literal dog-eat-dog situation where the brothers dismantle an operation to process dogs stolen from shelters or walkers into pet food. After their ordeal the brothers are still left to sort through the many loose ends left behind regarding their father’s death and what he had left his sons.

Real-life Inspiration

In an interview with the Contemporary Bulgarian Writers blog, Alek Popov goes into detail on where he got the inspiration to write this book. “I lost my father suddenly when he was teaching maths at the University of Philadelphia. We got his ashes in a black plastic box… It is a very painful matter that I wanted to treat in a fictional way.” Popov later goes on to say how his brother works in New York as a consultant, just like Ned. He also said that he drew the aspect of not knowing if his dad is still alive of the book from seeing the scene near Ground Zero with missing persons posters in 2002, not long after the 9/11 attacks.^[3]

While Popov does not talk specifically about why he called the book The Black Box , it could be presumed that the title draws inspiration from the part of the airplane (flight recorder), which is used for finding out the causes of plane’s demise. This connects well with the mystery surrounding the death of Emmanuel Banov in the story, with his ashes being delivered in a black box.

Critical reception

The novel has generally received positive critical acclaim. On the Goodreads page discussing this novel, written in Bulgarian, the book received an average 3.54 stars out of 5 on 203 ratings of the book^[4]. The website “The Globally Curious” gave this a positive review, calling this book “brilliant” and a “must read”.^[5] In 2014, The Black Box won the 2013 Bulgarian novel contest by the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation and Peter Owen Publishers.^[6]

References

1. ^http://www.contemporarybulgarianwriters.com/1-writers/alek-popov/
2. ^http://www.contemporarybulgarianwriters.com/1-writers/alek-popov/
3. ^http://www.contemporarybulgarianwriters.com/3-interviews/the-black-box-interview-with-alek-popov/
4. ^[https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6090413?from_search=true]
5. ^http://thegloballycurious.blogspot.com/2015/10/the-black-box-by-alek-popov-translated.html
6. ^http://www.contemporarybulgarianwriters.com/1-writers/alek-popov/