Identity and multiplicity in Canetti's and Wagenstein's birthplaces: exploring the rhizomatic roots of Europe.

The aim of this article is to present some commonalities between the works of two writers who share the same Bulgarian and Jewish origin: Elias Canetti (1905–1994) and Angel Wagenstein (1922–). Both writers can be considered as highly multicultural personalities: they both came from Sephardic Jewish backgrounds, and were influenced and fascinated by different cultural worlds such as the Bulgarian one, the Jewish one, the Central-European one, and even more. This paper will explore the contribution of their birthplaces, respectively, Rustschuk (today, Ruse) and Plovdiv, to the development of what I will define as a particular kind of sensibility for multiplicity which was central to their subsequent cultural and social undertakings.