Genoveva Dimova’s debut novel is a fast-paced fantasy rooted in Slavic folklore, and in the author’s own words, Foul Days is “a Balkan fantasy about impossible to escape, monster-filled cities and impossible to escape, monstrous exes”. Set during the twelve days after Christmas, when monsters are free to roam—based on Bulgarian foklore—this story follows a young witch who trades her shadow for illegal passage over the wall. Included is a vengeful ex who is a dragon capable of disguising himself as a handsome man. And included are a whole lot of terrifying monsters. Life on the outside isn’t easy in this modern fantasy where The Witcher meets Naomi Novik.
Laura R. Samotin, author of The Sins on Their Bones, has said this debut “will stand as a classic of Slavic folklore among the likes of Katherine Arden’s Winternight Trilogy”. Whether it’s Foul Days or The Bear and the Nightingale, the inspiration stemming from non-Western folklore is unmissable. It is this inspiration in contemporary literature that Genoveva Dimova (Foul Days, June 2024) has explored below. To view more such posts by debut authors, make sure to check out this collaboration, Debut Dialogues!
The Deep Waters of Folklore
Genoveva Dimova (Foul Days) shares the power and dangers of folklore-inspired fantasy.
Fantasy is, at its core, the literature of mythology and folklore. From the Epic of Gilgamesh and the Mahābhārata and Rāmāyaṇa, to the Greek epics and Norse sagas, One Thousand and One Nights and Beowulf—it’s easy to trace modern fantasy’s heritage from these ancient stories, through fairy tales and medieval romances, all the way to Tolkien, and his goal to create a ‘mythology for England’.
Therefore, “folklore-inspired fantasy” is somewhat of a misnomer, as all fantasy derives from folklore. Even using the “standard” fantasy worldbuilding in the Western literary tradition is a pastiche of an idealised, white-washed North-Western Medieval Europe. It’s a place that never existed, yet people seem to feel nostalgia for.
This comes with its own pitfalls: for example, how often have you encountered a fantasy book in which the ‘rightful king’ ends up taking the throne at the end, based on nothing but the magic power of his blood? How often do fantastical creatures like orcs and goblins end up an uncomfortable stereotype leaning on real-world prejudices? The problem with it all being so familiar is that it’s easy to lean into that familiarity and leave it unchallenged.
However, choosing to take inspiration from an underrepresented folklore instead is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it means sharing a part of your culture with the world. It means writing something that feels true to you and the stories with which you grew up, and there is a vulnerability in that. On the other hand, it means sharing said stories without the comfortable context of cultural familiarity. It means having to look deeply into what elements you pick and why. It means introducing your own culture’s historical biases and thorny issues.
This is, I believe, the core of the issue: fantasy is tied to folklore, and folklore is tied to the notions of culture, of ethnicity, of nation. It’s the ultimate keeper of tradition, the repetition of rituals and rites throughout the centuries.
As a Bulgarian, I’m very aware of the power of folklore. My country was under Ottoman rule for five centuries, and then, after a few decades of independence, it became a Soviet satellite. Our beliefs, our traditions, and our folklore are what helped us preserve our existence under the influence of bigger, stronger powers.
At the same time, I’m aware of how folklore can become a weapon. How often folklore is used to call back to simpler, more orderly times, when things were the way they were supposed to be. How easily loving your culture can turn into believing it superior. It would be easy to dismiss this as irrelevant, as nothing more than fantasy’s murky history: from its noble beginnings somewhere in Mesopotamia, through its spotty teenage years of European nation-building, to today, when the genre has matured into something more self-aware; something that is pure entertainment, without political implications.
I’d like to caution against this idea. I believe that speculative fiction is always political—that its best quality is turning a distorted mirror to the real world and commenting on real-world issues through a fantastical lens, as the great Sir Terry Pratchett once said. Therefore, telling a fantasy story is a choice—one with consequences that need to be examined.
This is something I was very aware of as I chose to write Foul Days, a story inspired by the folklore of my native Bulgaria. I mentioned above the role of folklore in preserving the status quo and idealising the past. Folklore’s purpose is to preserve, not to challenge.
For example, Bulgarian society was notoriously patriarchal, and there is a common motif in Bulgarian folklore of a dangerous, monstrous woman. She is usually an otherworldly creature of some sort, a bloodthirsty nature spirit, or the spirit of a plague, or of a storm. You can recognise her by her long, loose hair—as every respectable woman knew back then you had to keep your hair braided, and, if you were married, covered.
This is an obvious lesson on the dangers of uncontrolled femininity, coming straight from traditional Bulgarian society. It’s also an idea that has no place in today’s world—so I made my protagonist a dangerous, powerful woman with long, loose hair, a direct reversal of the antagonistic role of such figures in traditional stories.
As another obvious example, take vampires.In Eastern European lore, vampires were the restless spirits of the dead who were not buried properly, and who return from their graves to torment their relatives.Through the centuries, however, the vampire myth twisted, until it resembled something uncomfortably close to blood libel, an antisemitic belief falsely accusing Jewish people of using the blood of Christians in their rituals. This is how easy it would be to incorporate something ugly into your worldbuilding if you follow the folklore concept blindly.
To me, this is the challenge, but also the fun of borrowing from folklore in modern fantasy: the opportunity to examine why certain motifs exist, and the ability to twist them, retell them, and reclaim them. This is what the best folklore-inspired fantasy out there does: like how Naomi Novik’s Spinning Silver uses Jewish lore to tell a story of feminine strength and community, and how P. Djèlí Clark’s A Master of Djinn gives djinn and magic an anti-colonial twist in alternate Cairo. Katherine Arden’s The Bear and the Nightingale turns a vicious winter spirit from Russian fairy tales into a secondary character next to our brave female protagonist, and The Witch’s Heart by Genevieve Gornichec gives a voice to a previously overlooked witch of Norse myth.
Folklore is an endless, ever-flowing source of inspiration—but its deep waters need to be traversed carefully, as it’s all too easy to get lost.
Genoveva Dimova is a Bulgarian fantasy author and archaeologist based in Scotland. Her debut novel inspired by Slavic folklore, Foul Days, is coming out in June 2024, with the sequel, Monstrous Nights to follow in October 2024. When she’s not writing, she likes to explore old ruins, climb even older hills, and listen to practically ancient rock music. To keep up to date with news and updates about Genoveva’s books, join her newsletter or find her on Instagram at @gen_dimova.