Interviews
"Wednesdays with Writers: #1 New York Times Bestselling Author Elizabeth Kostova Takes Us on Cultural Wandering Through Bulgaria, Music, Mystery, and More"
Leslie Lindsay, May 10, 2017
"I was inspired to include it by my unexpected experience of visiting the ruins of a real camp—dilapidated and closed to the public—while I was doing research in Bulgaria for THE SHADOW LAND. It was one of the emptiest, eeriest places I’ve ever seen, and it made me feel a responsibility to write about it. Stoyan’s story also includes some joyful things, like a great love—and his love of his violin."
"Interview with New York Times Bestselling Author, Elizabeth Kostova"
Curiouser Editing, May 3, 2017
"I knew right away, visiting Bulgaria for the first time in 1989, just as the Berlin Wall fell, that I wanted to write a book set there one day. What I didn’t know was that I would be returning there over and over and would learn so much about the country that way. I also didn’t know that the story I’d eventually write would grapple so much with Bulgaria’s Communist past."
"An Interview with Elizabeth Kostova"
Words Without Borders, March 6, 2017
"I’m really proud as an American writer to see the increased number of Bulgarian books published in English. When we began our work ten years ago, there were only two or three contemporary Bulgarian literary works in print in English—now there are nearly twenty. Many of these have come about through work by wonderful publishers who come to Sozopol and then stay interested in bringing out Bulgarian writers—Open Letter, Istros Books, Peter Owen, and others. When I look at just the books listed on our site now, I can hardly believe it. I’m also grateful to the several editors of literary/translation magazines and other venues who’ve now worked with us to host first-ever Bulgarian special issues and features—very much including Words Without Borders."
"Kostova's 'Swan Thieves': Art, Love and Crime"
NPR, January 8, 2010
"It was a huge risk, but it was also very exciting," she said. "My first novel was heavily plotted, and although it's a deeply felt novel for me, it's kind of an intricate puzzle that I had to work out ahead of time. And this book I really wrote imagining scenes almost the way you would stand in front of a painting. And it was a moving experience to be sort of there with the reader, not knowing exactly how this would turn out."
"Elizabeth Kostova: Portrait of the Artist"
Bookpage, January 2010
“With The Historian, I liked the idea of writing about a supernatural topic and trying to make it human, and with [The Swan Thieves] I think I was really intrigued with the idea of writing on these rather time-worn subjects, the partly mad artist and the subject of genius and what genius is allowed to do and not allowed to do.”
"The swan thieves: A Novel"
"ALOUD Podcast" Los Angeles Public Library, January 28, 2010
On The Historian
The Guardian, July 18, 2005
"I started writing a novel about Dracula but gradually discovered that among other things I was writing a love story across the iron curtain, a story about a young woman who has been brought up in a very intellectual, academic atmosphere where learning is valued but people are sheltered. So some of this is also the story of her movement out of books and into the world."