Izidora Angel is a Bulgarian-born memoirist, essayist, and literary translator based in Chicago. She is the author of four full-length translations from Bulgarian, including Yordanka Beleva's Keder, for which she received a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. Angel's work has appeared in A Public Space, Astra, Best Literary Translations 2024, Chicago Reader, Electric Literature, Words Without Borders, and elsewhere. She received a PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant and the Gulf Coast Prize in Translation for her in-progress work on She Who Remains.

Bulgarian poet, writer, screenwriter, actor, and playwright Rene Karabash has won multiple awards for her work, including several Best Actress awards for her role in the film Godless, and the Elias Canetti prize--Bulgaria's most prestigious literary award--for She Who Remains, her debut novel. She Who Remains has been translated into over a dozen languages, including French, Italian, Swedish, Portuguese, and Arabic, and a film based on Karabash's adaptation of the novel is set to be released in 2025. Karabash is also the author of Omar's Letters to His Future Wife.

International Booker Prize 2026 Shortlist

Named by Service95 as one of "The 21 Must-Read Books to Have on Your Radar in 2026."

"In the subtle and capable translation of Angel, this sad tale unfolds in a painfully raw, stream-of-consciousness style, offering an engrossing glimpse into a remote Albanian village steeped in tradition. Yet, its exploration of patriarchal violence and trauma makes it culturally profound and relevant, universally, at a historical moment when many are struggling to understand the transgender experience and gender fluidity." --PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grants

"Izidora Angel works magic with words . . . Rene Karabash's She Who Remains ensnares you into a contemporary world of ancient patriarchal law and guides you through its perilous territory on an intense journey of identity (trans)formation, family commitment, and love . . . There is joy and there is beauty in the texts Angel translates from Bulgarian, and above all--the promise of rebirth and salvation." --Stiliana Milkova Rousseva, Reading in Translation

"Told with understated poetry, this novel perfectly captures the slippery uncertainty of painful memories." --International Booker Prize

Publisher: Sandorf Passage

Pub date: 2026-01-27

Length: 150 pages