Izidora Angel on 'She Who Remains' (Nominated for the International Booker Prize - 2026)
"Welcome to Harshaneeyam. Today, we delve into a powerful work of Bulgarian literature that has recently made its way to the 2026 International Booker Prize shortlist: 'She Who Remains' by Renée Karbash translated into English by Izidora Angel.
The novel explores the life of a 'sworn virgin'—a woman who, according to an ancient Balkan tradition, takes a vow of celibacy and lives as a man to gain the rights and status reserved for men in a patriarchal society. However, Karbash moves beyond the tradition itself to examine the psychological weight of this choice. It is a story about identity, the cost of survival, and the profound isolation that comes with erasing one's past.
Joining us to discuss this work is the English translator Izidora Angel. Having translated other notable Bulgarian writers like Natalia Deleva, Izidora found this particular project to be uniquely challenging and innovative.
In our conversation, she talks about the experience of the book being recognized by the International Booker Prize—from the initial longlist to the formal invitation to London. We also discuss her translation process, specifically how she approached Karbash’s experimental style and the linguistic shifts required to capture a character who transitions between a female past and a male present. It is a fascinating look at how a translator navigates a text that is as much about what is unsaid as what is written."
Izidora Angel is a Bulgarian-born memoirist, essayist and literary translator based in Chicago. Her translation of She Who Remains by Rene Karabash has been shortlisted for the 2026 International Booker Prize.
Izidora's writing has appeared in A Public Space, Astra Magazine, Electric Literature, Gulf Coast, and elsewhere, and anthologized in Best Literary Translations. She’s been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Elizabeth Kostova Foundation, PEN/Heim, and others.
Izidora is completing her debut memoir, Solomon’s Daughter, first excerpted in The American Scholar.
Transcript of the Conversation:
Harshaneeyam (00:24.12)
Welcome to Harshnayam Podcast. Today we delve into a powerful work of a Bulgarian literature that has recently made its way to the 2026 International Book Prize shortlist, She Who Remains by René Carabache. The novel explores the life of a swan virgin, a woman who, according to an ancient Balkan tradition, takes a vow of celibacy and lives as a man to gain the rights and status reserved for men in a deeply patriarchal society. However, Karabash moves beyond the tradition itself to examine the psychological weight of this choice. It is a story about identity, the cost of survival and the profound isolation that comes with erasing one's past. Joining us to discuss this work is the English translator Isidora Angel. Having translated other notable Bulgarian writers like Natalia Diliva, Isidora found this particular project to be uniquely challenging and innovative.
In our conversation, she talks about the experience of the book being recognized by the International Booker Prize from the initial long list to the formal invitation to London. We also discuss her translation process, specifically how she approached Carvajal's experimental style and the linguistic shifts required to capture a character who transitions between a female past and a male present. It is a fascinating look at how a translator navigates a text. that is as much about what is unsaid as what is written. Isidro Angel is a Bulgarian-born memoirist, essayist and literary translator based in Chicago. Her translation of She Who Remains by Rene Karabash has been shortlisted for the 2026 International Booker Prize. Isidro's writing has appeared in a public space, Astara magazine, electric literature, Gulf Coast and elsewhere, and anthology in best literary translations. She has been recognized by the National Endowment for the Arts, the Elizabeth Kostovar Foundation, Penheim and others. Isidore is completing her debut memo, Solomon's daughter first accepted in the American Scholar. We believe that every great book is an invitation to a new world. Her name serves as your gateway to these contemporary global masterpieces, connecting you with the translators and authors who shape our literary landscape.
Harshaneeyam (03:19.842)
You mentioned about you translating this novel in our earlier podcast couple of years ago and we spoke about it. And I'm glad that it's been long listed and now shortlisted.
Izidora (03:32.69)
thank you so much. We just got the invite today and it does have a very much like a Cinderella going to the ball feel to it because they have a, you know, they say, you know, you're invited and where it is. And then they say, you know, red carpet arrival and reception and program. then the very last line says midnight carriages.
Harshaneeyam (04:04.814)
So, what first drew you to Renny Karpash's novel also having translated other authors like Natalia Thileva, how did the translation process and writing style for this project differ from your previous work? It is actually a two part question.
Izidora (04:21.858)
What drew me to Renée in particular? And it wasn't something that I was able to grasp the very first time I saw it, the very first time I read it. I think my mind was just kind of elsewhere and I was working on Natalia Delevois book at the time, Four Minutes. And I think that this was so innovative, Renée's book.
And it was so kind of ahead of its time that it actually took me a few times to figure out what I could do with it because I have to, anytime I undertake a project, I have to be able to see where it might go. Not just linguistically with my work on it, but outside of that, because I don't just do things for fun in my room without wanting to take it to the absolute max level that it can go. a few people had mentioned Renee in her book to me and Natalia Delvo is actually one of those people. And so it's just a really beautiful kind of connection. Every author that I translate then goes on to introduce me to my next author that I go on to translate. And that's been the case with Natalia. And then she introduced me to Judanka Baleva and then Natalia was also kind of instrumental in introducing me to Renee's work as well. And ultimately it was Renee's agent who sent me the book, The Final Time, the time when I compared it to a couple of other books that were sent to me. And I said, you know what, this is by far the most interesting thing. And really grabbed me is that I don't think that I had ever read something which so brilliantly got into the thought stream of a person. The ways in which at any given moment we are the summation of everything that has ever happened, that will happen, that might have happened, of everything we think and dread. And that was ultimately the most brilliant thread I thought in the novel and the way that it came out in this just completely natural way. There was no stumbling over it. There's no fight to understand it. It's just brilliantly kind of out there. and in regards to how Renee compares to the other authors that I've that I've translated, know, so Natalia Deleva is very controlled and there's very much an element of psychological realism. Yurdanka Deleva is a poet, there's, stories are like flash fiction. They're almost like prose poems. There's very much a lyrical compression and a precision. And what I love about how Donna Deleva and Renee They approach God in very, very different ways, but that there is this fundamental love of God in the universe and in their work. And I'm typically somebody who's very allergic to any sort of religious thing in literature because I live in America and there's been just this absolute drive to anti-intellectualism and this kind of strip mall version of religion. And it's been absolutely repulsive to me to watch. But then when I go into their work and I see how they treat God, it's been really incredible to kind of approach it from completely different point of view.
Harshaneeyam (08:20.236)
Yeah, that's what great writing can do to us.
Izidora (08:23.404)
Yes, yes, yeah, they really can completely reposition something that you thought you were, you had very much established, you know, opinions on.
Harshaneeyam (08:38.894)
Coming to the novel part, the novel explores an age old imposed patriarchal tradition, if I may say. The paradox of the swan virgin tradition is that while it is meant to free the women from certain social bonds, it ultimately subjects them to a different form of oppression altogether.
Izidora (09:00.14)
Yes, of course.
Harshaneeyam (09:02.126)
I would say it is not complete freedom. She remains under the control of that system. Aside from the swan vagin tradition, frequently, novel frequently refers to the Kanun. Interestingly, Kanun is also a word in Urdu and Hindi.
Izidora (09:18.51)
What does it mean?
Harshaneeyam (09:20.962)
the law.
Izidora (09:22.678)
Yeah. it's, yes, it's all, yeah. And, Canon, right? mean, right. That's the, that's the,
Harshaneeyam (09:27.018)
You can say that, yeah.
Harshaneeyam (09:31.128)
Please give us the backdrop of the novel. Though it's a Bulgarian novel, it starts in Albania.
Izidora (09:38.006)
Obviously I can't speak for Renee and kind of how she approached everything. I can only tell you from the conversations that we've had, because she's using something real to tell a fictional story. So I really would hesitate to call it some kind of historical document. But the truth is that, yes, she was very much inspired by Ismael Kadara's work. And she researched the sworn virgin phenomenon for a long time, I think about two years. And she was very much inspired by the photo exhibition of a Bulgarian born Berlin based photographer called Peppa Christova. And actually Dua Lipa's service 95 just recently ran some of those photos on Instagram. So you can go and see them if you, if you can. And those are absolutely fascinating because these women decided to live as men and I say decided, know, loosely, obviously, as a form of escaping a very predetermined, very constraint based existence. And some of them did it because they were families of all girls. And so they needed a boy to make decisions because, you know, in those societies, women are not able to make financial decisions or, you know, be the head of household or anything like that. Some did it because they had a disability and you know, one of the women who lives as a man said she's missing her hands and she said nobody wants a woman without hands. These are very much, this is very much a real thing that exists. And the idea that you're somehow freed and liberated is obviously very complicated because you still have to answer to very rigid binary gender existence. You're a woman, you have no rights. Here, I'm going to live as a man, but you have to forgo your identity in order to be accepted into society as that. And so I think what Renee did with this is she wanted to show an absolute extreme because she talks about how much of the story is actually her story in the sense that she grew up in a very remote village in Bulgaria. She was surrounded by this very much outdated patriarchal traditions and ways of looking at the world. She had to kill animals with her dad. had to live this kind of very, the words coming to me in Bulgarian, but it's not coming to me in English, this very raw kind of existence, right? And feeling like her identity of who she wanted to be was sort of not allowed. It was not legible to her surroundings.
And so she sort of escaped and I use that in quotations by going, by moving to Sofia, by moving to the big city. So she says that, you know, her, main character is really her sister and the brother figure is really her kind of escaping and, and, and going to the big city. But I think, I think it's probably more complicated than that. I think, you know, every character that is in there, she could be, could be some of her, as well. So When we talk about something happening in kind of an isolated rural region, I think she's using the Albanian locale as kind of an extreme setting to show what could happen, what is possible, and what is the absolute extreme version of patriarchal systems. What can that look like? And kind of as a warning against oppression, oppression of women, oppression of queer people, because Bulgaria is still at odds with the rights of LGBTQ people. Gay marriage is still banned. It's still illegal. And that's not a metaphor.
Harshaneeyam (14:13.934)
It's an interesting fact in South India until the early 20th century. We had a tradition known as the Devadasi system. In this context, Dasi means servant or slave and Deva means God. Essentially, they were servants of God. mean, women from a specific section of society were dedicated to temples. They lived within the temple precincts and were provided for. performing traditional dances and all that during the festivals. However, there is a dark side to this. These women were often exploited by kings and priests, the ruling and upper classes of the society for their own physical comfort I might add. While the system was eventually abolished in the early 20th century, I was strongly reminded of it while reading this book.
Izidora (15:06.222)
Right, right, right.
Harshaneeyam (15:07.534)
And as I read more and more of literature in translation from across the world, I noticed that while there are degrees of variation, the underlying patriarchy remains the same wherever you go. These oppressive customs exist all across the globe in different forms. The Swamvajan tradition, of course, is a particularly extreme form of this, I would say.
Harshaneeyam (15:34.79)
Aside from this tradition, novel also frequently has frequent references to the blood feud. This seems to be a recurring almost constant theme in the first half of the narrative. Could you please tell us more about the role of this blood feud in the novel?
Izidora (15:56.878)
Yeah, so the blood feuds are something that is very much a real thing. And I think that in the novel, it's used as also is a kind of metaphor, but Becchia, the main character, is sort of forced into an arranged marriage. And there's kind of a loophole as that you can back out of this arranged marriage if you take the oath of the sworn virgin. However, that in turn triggers a blood feud. And that's kind of...the first part of the novel is how the blood feud is triggered. so blood feuds are kind of an eye for an eye, you know, but in a very, very literal sense of, know, if you've shamed me by backing out of this marriage, you've brought shame on the groom and his whole family. So now one of them can come and kill one of the men in your family. And so blood feuds are how men sort of settle scores.
And I won't reveal sort of more than that because it's going to give away things. But this is kind of how the book opens is by the first scene is her father, the main character's father, who is a very strong presence throughout the book and the kind of the driving force of good things and bad, mostly bad.and he gets killed by the groom's family.
Harshaneeyam (17:45.294)
Another interesting element in the novel is the character of Kuka, the village fool. The protagonist has two intimate physical encounters, one that is forced and another that is born out of love, I would say. So regarding this forced encounter with Kuka, I have a theory that it might not have actually happened in the literal sense. I believe Kuka is a metaphor created by Rene. Kuka acts as a symbol for the Kanun system itself. Like a village fool, the Kanun is both irrational and foolish. It remains an incredibly oppressive system. The reason I suspect this encounter is symbolic is that it is never mentioned again in the novel. It leaves no trace in the subsequent narrative.
which often suggests a metaphorical or a psychological event rather than a physical one.
Izidora (18:47.618)
The way I see it is a little bit different than you. think it might be because I'm a woman. But I think we have to be careful about turning that character into a metaphor because first and foremost, he's a rapist. And I think, yeah, he can be read as reflecting aspects of the canoes, something that is violent and forced and oppressive and awful, yes.He exposes, the character exposes how a system can enable or absorb violence and without accounting for it. But if he's symbolic, it's not blind law. It's a figure through whom the book shows how violence is normalized and how violence against women is, there's no retribution, there's no accountability.
And so the reason that Becky wants to back out of her marriage is yes, she's in love with someone else, but also that rape means that she's no longer a virgin. And if you're not a virgin on your wedding day, your groom has the right to kill you. And so it's really a matter of survival. And I just love all the nuance and all the three-dimensionality of it and how Renee was able to craft a story that uses all of these elements and make it into a cohesive narrative.
Harshaneeyam (20:25.42)
If you come to the structure of the novel, the way it's written, the prose is deeply poetic throughout. The writer avoided the strict punctuation, which feels like a deliberate attack as if you're breaking away from the rigid loss of the content. Interestingly, while the first person narration flows without full stops, wherever the brothers letters come, which of course are very pivotal to the plot,
Izidora (20:43.49)
Yes.
Harshaneeyam (20:55.058)
they are perfectly punctuated. The book begins as a complex literary work with shifting perspectives. But the final 40 pages actually unfold like the novel actually unfolds like a suspense thriller to me. So unraveling layer after layer, it truly elevates the novel to a whole different level. So as a translator, how did you navigate this stylistic shifts, the lack of standard punctuation, the unconventional paragraph structures. To me, at least they seem like significant roadblocks to a translator. When translating into English, did you ever doubt whether these experimental elements would be understood by the reader? And how did you overcome those challenges to produce such a seamless translation?
Izidora (21:51.672)
Thank you for all that.
You know, Renee talks about it kind of pouring out of her in about two months. She had done a lot of research leading up to it, but then she says she heard the voice and then once she heard the voice, it was just, it was channeling. And I think the truest artists are those who know that their body is a vessel for a story to come out. And you can't even. And I catch myself doing this sometimes too when I'm writing is it'll come out of me and it'll take me a moment to understand what's just come out of me because it's farther ahead than where I'm at. So it's kind of like, it's a force that works faster than your brain can comprehend it. And I think a lot of the same things happened when I began translating it. I was channeling the same way because there's such a force in the book that I had to kind of just let everything go and let it carry me because I couldn't make it, know, prettify it. couldn't sort of protect. I couldn't just think about it in a simplistic way. You know, there's such a force that I had to like protect the force and the speed with which everything was moving. And I thinkYou know, the things that you say about line breaks, know, those are pauses because we don't have formal sentence structure. And we just have paragraphs, kind of free flowing paragraphs. And so we need to take a breath because when there's no periods, kind of, have to hold your breath to keep going. And so she very...very deliberately uses those as a pause. And then when it comes to the letters from her brother, which are, you know, capitalized and punctuated and very formal, those are also pauses for us to kind of not only take into account a different perspective because at some point in the novel, we realized that we're dealing with an unreliable narrator. And it's not necessarily always a matter of questioning, well, did this happen or did that happen? But the question is, could it have happened this way? And the answer is yes. So when the brother comes in and kind of introduces a different point of view, that kind of, that can kind of challenge, it's a very good narrative device because the reason so much of the free flowing verse or the free flowing sort of text is the way it is, is because we know that Bekia, the main character, is telling her story to a visiting journalist. So in my mind, it's very much an oral storytelling, which is also very, very true of how Bulgarian itself was passed on through the generations, especially when we were under Ottoman rule and literature was...suffocated and the written word was suffocated and the way language survived was through oral storytelling.
Harshaneeyam (25:12.684)
Now, we will come to the title. The title too is very very evocative, She Who Remains. So, in your mind, does it refer to the survival of the body or survival of the woman inside the man or the survival of the love for Dhan?
Izidora (25:31.982)
I mean, I think it's a rallying cry. I think it's a manifesto. I think the title is a existence against all odds. It's funny because in the original, it's only one word and it contains that entire feeling. The nouns are gendered. in Bulgarian, even though Ustainica itself, I believe is actually Serbian, but I think she used it because it reads in Bulgarian as well. You know, you can understand it without a sort of translation. In Albanian it's Burnesha. And so Ustainica means to stay, but because the noun is gendered, it's contained within it that it's a woman who is staying. But it's she who stays that seems very obedient. That seems someone who's listening. That seems somebody who is subservient, right? In my mind. But she who remains, that to me is a fight against a dogma. It's a fight against someone telling you what's right and what's not and who to be. So I...I thought that the title as it is in English is really great. And keep in mind, it's not the same in all the languages that the book has been translated into. At this point, it's been translated into 18 or 19 languages. So some have leaned on the sworn version aspect. Some have remained with the Ustaenitsa, especially in the Balkan languages because that's legible over there. And yeah, so it's really interesting the different interpretations across languages.
Harshaneeyam (27:31.378)
That's really interesting and the She Who remains it also gives it a feel of permanence.
Izidora (27:42.242)
Yes. Yes, the sort of what it is to remain when everything else falls away.
Harshaneeyam (27:51.512)
How is it being received in the US and the UK markets? You have been to the UK recently, you have travelled, you went on a book tour kind of a thing.
Izidora (28:05.902)
The reception in the UK, in Europe in general, has been absolutely amazing. It has been beyond anything that I could have ever expected. And obviously with the Booker nomination and the long list and the short list, it's been given a lot of attention. And I've just been really, really taken aback and in a good way by the amount of care that Bookstagram and the books to grammars who have given this book so much time and so much space and so much love. I did not expect that there is a just an entire movement of people who are not paid critics, who don't work for major outlets, who spend so much time outside of their full-time jobs, by the way, tochampion literature and literature and translation. And there's an entire sort of world in which they are talking about who's going to be on the long list and who's going to be on the short list and what their predictions are and why. And this book has been almost universally loved and adored all across Instagram, which can sound kind of frivolous, but it is not because some of the most beautiful words that I've seen about this work have come from there and they've appreciated the translation and they've appreciated my work and that is huge. We've also been, you know, we've been in the Telegraph in the UK and the Irish Times and so we've gotten the sort of big outlet reviews. And then there's the question of America and American criticism has by and large, completely slept on this book. And I can only assume that there's reviews being written as we speak, just because the shortlist came out a week ago and now they have to play catch up. Now the New York Times has to play catch up and the New York Review of Books has to play catch up and the Los Angeles Review of Books. mean, I'm only assuming, I don't know anything, but I feel like they are being forced to enter the conversation, which they would not have otherwise entered because… There is very much a culture of snobbery, especially in New York and the US at large. And when they see a small Balkan book, it's not taken very seriously, you know? But now their hand is forced, isn't it? Now they have to, because this has been acknowledged at the highest possible level and now they have no choice. And I love that. I love that.
Harshaneeyam (30:50.254)
It deserves all the attention that is getting even on the YouTube for that matter. There are a lot of good reviews about the book, not only the Instagram. Yes. Yes. There are some people I follow on YouTube. They are called booktubers.
Izidora (30:58.958)
Yes.
Izidora (31:06.068)
Okay, that's right. That's great. That's great. I will have to look for that and check it out. Yeah, love that. Yeah, I want to see the... It's so incredible because, know, as a translator, I play the role of, you know, obviously, very early stages is kind of a champion and agent of the book and
Harshaneeyam (31:14.462)
Yeah, yeah, I'll send you.
Izidora (31:34.326)
somebody who has to convince the people, convince the editor to take it on and convince people to believe in it and everything like that. And so I was used to, I had my spiel, I had my pitch of this book. And now the book is so much bigger than me or Renee. It's like living, breathing out in the world. And the things that people are saying about it are so much sort of bigger than I could have ever imagined. And that has been one of the most incredible things that I've ever experienced. I just, I love the beautiful poetic things that the people who love this book have been saying about it.
Harshaneeyam (32:25.298)
That's the power of the written word.
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