Content Preface / 7 The Eternal and the Saint: Elisaveta Bagryana and Emily Dickinson /12 Women on War: Blaga Dimitrova and Denise Levertov / 25 Beyond Cultural and National Borders and the Gaps of Misinterpretation: the Lyrical Prose of Blaga Dimitrova and Virginia Woolf / 40 Woman's Self-Fulfillment: Blaga Dimitrova's Journey to Oneself and Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook 152 "Out of the Chaos, a New Kind of Strength": Blaga Dimitrova's Face and Doris Lessing's The Golden Notebook 164 Woman and Evil: Maria Stankova's / Want Him Dead and Muriel Spark's The Driver's Seat I 80 Bulgaria through American Eyes: John Updike's "The Bulgarian Poetess" A Cult of Woman?: Yordan Yovkov's "Albena" and Thomas Hardy's Tess Appendices Elisaveta Bagryana: poems and their English translations Dora Gabe: poems and their English translations Blaga Dimitrova: poems and their English translations Blaga Dimitrova: from Journey to Oneself John Updike: "The Bulgarian Poetess" Yordan Yovkov: "Albena"