Border

A Journey to the Edge of Europe

Nonfiction, Travel, Europe, Russia & Former Soviet Republics
Cover of the book Border by Kapka Kassabova, Graywolf Press
View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart
Author: Kapka Kassabova ISBN: 9781555979782
Publisher: Graywolf Press Publication: September 5, 2017
Imprint: Graywolf Press Language: English
Author: Kapka Kassabova
ISBN: 9781555979782
Publisher: Graywolf Press
Publication: September 5, 2017
Imprint: Graywolf Press
Language: English

“Remarkable: a book about borders that makes the reader feel sumptuously free.” —Peter Pomerantsev

In this extraordinary work of narrative reportage, Kapka Kassabova returns to Bulgaria, from where she emigrated as a girl twenty-five years previously, to explore the border it shares with Turkey and Greece. When she was a child, the border zone was rumored to be an easier crossing point into the West than the Berlin Wall, and it swarmed with soldiers and spies. On holidays in the “Red Riviera” on the Black Sea, she remembers playing on the beach only miles from a bristling electrified fence whose barbs pointed inward toward the enemy: the citizens of the totalitarian regime.

Kassabova discovers a place that has been shaped by successive forces of history: the Soviet and Ottoman empires, and, older still, myth and legend. Her exquisite portraits of fire walkers, smugglers, treasure hunters, botanists, and border guards populate the book. There are also the ragged men and women who have walked across Turkey from Syria and Iraq. But there seem to be nonhuman forces at work here too: This densely forested landscape is rich with curative springs and Thracian tombs, and the tug of the ancient world, of circular time and animism, is never far off.

Border is a scintillating, immersive travel narrative that is also a shadow history of the Cold War, a sideways look at the migration crisis troubling Europe, and a deep, witchy descent into interior and exterior geographies.

View on Amazon View on AbeBooks View on Kobo View on B.Depository View on eBay View on Walmart

“Remarkable: a book about borders that makes the reader feel sumptuously free.” —Peter Pomerantsev

In this extraordinary work of narrative reportage, Kapka Kassabova returns to Bulgaria, from where she emigrated as a girl twenty-five years previously, to explore the border it shares with Turkey and Greece. When she was a child, the border zone was rumored to be an easier crossing point into the West than the Berlin Wall, and it swarmed with soldiers and spies. On holidays in the “Red Riviera” on the Black Sea, she remembers playing on the beach only miles from a bristling electrified fence whose barbs pointed inward toward the enemy: the citizens of the totalitarian regime.

Kassabova discovers a place that has been shaped by successive forces of history: the Soviet and Ottoman empires, and, older still, myth and legend. Her exquisite portraits of fire walkers, smugglers, treasure hunters, botanists, and border guards populate the book. There are also the ragged men and women who have walked across Turkey from Syria and Iraq. But there seem to be nonhuman forces at work here too: This densely forested landscape is rich with curative springs and Thracian tombs, and the tug of the ancient world, of circular time and animism, is never far off.

Border is a scintillating, immersive travel narrative that is also a shadow history of the Cold War, a sideways look at the migration crisis troubling Europe, and a deep, witchy descent into interior and exterior geographies.

More books from Graywolf Press

Cover of the book The Search by Kapka Kassabova
Cover of the book All That Man Is by Kapka Kassabova
Cover of the book If You Want to Write by Kapka Kassabova
Cover of the book Bestiary by Kapka Kassabova
Cover of the book No Animals We Could Name by Kapka Kassabova
Cover of the book I Will Take the Answer by Kapka Kassabova
Cover of the book Don't Call Us Dead by Kapka Kassabova
Cover of the book The Narrow Door by Kapka Kassabova
Cover of the book See You in Paradise by Kapka Kassabova
Cover of the book Waiting for Tomorrow by Kapka Kassabova
Cover of the book Beast by Kapka Kassabova
Cover of the book Blackacre by Kapka Kassabova
Cover of the book Familiar by Kapka Kassabova
Cover of the book Byzantium by Kapka Kassabova
Cover of the book The Overhaul by Kapka Kassabova
We use our own "cookies" and third party cookies to improve services and to see statistical information. By using this website, you agree to our Privacy Policy