The Man and the Town in the Novel “The Amateurs” by Čavdar Mutafov

Abstract

The focus of this paper is novel “The Amateurs” by Čavdar Mutafov, one of the most interesting and yet unfortunately underappreciated representatives of the Bulgarian avant-garde in the twentieth century. His work, in which multicultural Europe is informed by reality and the grotesque, is closely associated with expressionist poetry. The novel presents a reliable image of the time period from the first half of the last century. The artistic world expressed in the work is filled with a specific rhythm of urban space in which buildings, public transportation, objects, and people articulate the message of the writer. Urban areas in this novel are combined with the grotesque images of the age which sets new spiritual and material standards. At an anthropological level, this Bulgarian author is analyzing the emotional reactions of the heroes, investigates the mutual interactions between people and the modern interiority through which their identity is reflected.