From Sofia to Chicago

Boxy Moskvitch and Lada cars, pastel-green concrete tiles, derelict playgrounds, intermittent hot water: these were the markers of Izidora Angel’s childhood in 1980s Sofia. “Banana-Yellow Trabants,” her essay for our Autumn 2025 issue, takes its name from the Duroplast car that her grandfather, and then her father, Solomon, drove in the 1980s. But bananas show up elsewhere, too: in the myths that young girls would tell each other about the diets of Bulgaria’s famed rhythmic gymnastics team and once, miraculously, on her family’s holiday table. The Angel family's antics suffuse the essay with warmth and humor, but churning beneath the surface is Solomon’s ambition. “He would be the boss, the creative vision and force behind all his future endeavors,” Angel writes, “opening the hottest nightclub in the capital, running five restaurants, renovating city landmarks, building the first manufacturing plant in the country after communism, developing plans to build a whole city.” That city was never built, and Angel lives in Chicago today, sent here alone on a plane more than 20 years ago. She joins us to talk about how her life has been an act of translation. Go beyond the episode: Read Izidora Angel’s “ Banana-Yellow Trabants ” in our Autumn 2025 issue, and an essay on translation and her father, “ The Alphabet of Supposition ” For more on Angel’s translation, read this interview from Reading in Translation about her forthcoming translation of She Who Remains by Rene Karabash In 2023, the Bulgarian novel Time Shelter , written by Georgi Gospodinov and translated by Angela Rodel, won the International Booker Prize—here are more Bulgarian books in translation Tune in every (other) week to catch interviews with the liveliest voices from literature, the arts, sciences, history, and public affairs; reports on cutting-edge works in progress; long-form narratives; and compelling excerpts from new books. Hosted by Stephanie Bastek and sponsored by the Phi Beta Kappa Society.

You can listen to From Sofia to Chicago online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

From Sofia to Chicago is an episode from Smarty Pants by Stephanie Bastek.

This episode is 24:08 long.

This episode was published on Oct 3, 2025.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from Smarty Pants when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.