Iren Ivantcheva

Iren Ivantcheva or "Ivancheva", or since 2006: "Irene Ivantcheva-Merjanska" (24 March 1960), is a Bulgarian literary historian, feminist and critic, born in Sofia. She is the mother of two. Her daughter's name is Ekaterina and her son Martin . Her father Ivan Ivantchev (1920-1984) was a sculptor and intellectual, considered as an "enemy of the people" during the totalitarian regime (1944-1989) in Bulgaria. She graduated from the Saint Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia in 1983. She is the author of "Bregove na chuvsvoto: glasove na zheni v bulgarskata poesia" [Shores of Emotion: Women’s Voices in Bulgarian Poetry] (1995), a concise history of Bulgarian women's poetry; and the preface writer and editor of the Dimitar Bochev's book "Homo Emigranticus" (1993); preface writer and editor of Mara Belcheva's "One Life" (1996) in collaboration with Mirela Ivanova. She is also the author of numerous articles and reviews in literary journals. She enjoys writing poetry.

Her Ph.D. dissertation on "Aspects of Intertextuality in Bulgarian Women‘s Poetry from the Mid 19th century to the 1920s" was defended at Bulgarian Academy of Sciences in Sofia, 2000. Since 2001 she has been living in the United States where she studies French and Francophone literatures in a Doctor of Philosophy program at the University of Cincinnati. Since 1999 she is married to the Bulgarian poet Kiril Merjanski.