Miřenka Čechová’s Ballerinas has been translated into Macedonian and Bulgarian

Book cover of the Macedonian translation of “Ballerinas”; source: Antolog Books

The fiction book Ballerinas (2020) by Czech dancer and theatre director Miřenka Čechová has been published in Macedonian, and the translation to Bulgarian is coming soon.

After her first book Miss AmeriKa (2018), “the fictitious and literary, photographic, and graphic documentary” about the life of a stranger in New York, Miřenka Čechová, the representative of Czech dance and physical theatre, published her Ballerinas in 2020. Her second book is based on her experience and diary entries. Her fiction book is a self-ironic, raw, and merciless image of her studies at the Dance Conservatory and life in Prague in the wild 1990s.

Annotation from the Paseka publishing house:
“Ballerinas have two sides. The front, smiling and perfect one that the audience can see. And then the dark side, when they disappear behind the curtain, the impeccable smile drops and the face contorts into a haggard grimace because they are choking. They cannot breathe with their mouth during the dance. They stare wide-eyed and gasp for breath. If somebody filmed ballerinas like that, it would be a showcase of suffering. Yet they are trained to do that. Like the heroine of the story. She experiences a ballet drill every day as if she were in the army.”

This year (2023), the book was published in the North-Macedonian publishing house Antolog Books in Macedonian translation. The Izida EOOD in Sofia is planning to publish the book in Bulgarian by the end of this year.