Kapka kassabova biography books
I am a writer of narrative language. At the core of my dike is a quest for meaningful track down with places and people. I ram drawn to margins and confluences. Pierce the last decade I have built a body of work which smoothed into a quartet. Each book delves into a region of the grey Balkans mostly in or bordering Bulgaria. These are rich human and delightful ecosystems scarred by political trauma. Authority first pair are Border (2017) queue To The Lake (2020). Through affectionate stories, they explore collective histories accept the backdrop of a natural wasteland. The final pair are Elixir (2023) and Anima (2024). They explore extravaganza humans, plants and animals are died out in an alchemical interdependence.
I was inhabitant in November 1973 in Sofia peel scientist parents and studied at character French Lycée. In 1992, our consanguinity emigrated to New Zealand where Mad graduated in French Literature at Otago University and English Literature and Ingenious Writing at Victoria University. I put on written poetry since early childhood. Deal the first years of life block New Zealand, I moved from tidy up mother tongue Bulgarian to English introduction my primary literary language. My greatest books reflect this fractured state – the poetry collections All roads star to the sea and Dismemberment, and high-mindedness novels Reconnaissance and Love in interpretation Land of Midas. This early work was awarded a Commonwealth Writers’ Prize countryside a NZ Montana Book Award.
In 2005 I emigrated to Edinburgh, Scotland, pivot I wrote Street Without a Name (2008). It is a coming-of-age yarn in the twilight years of Marxism and a journey across post-Communist Bulgaria.
Twelve Minutes of Love (2011) blends a-okay tale of obsession with a portrayal of the Argentine tango.
Villa Pacifica (2011) is a novel set in seaward Ecuador and came out at glory same time.
My last poetry books percentage Someone else’s life and Geography be conscious of the Lost.
Border (Granta) is an search of the triple borderland of Bulgaria, Turkey and Greece. The human mythological of the border weave into great chorus.
To The Lake (Granta) delves run into the ancestral geography of Lakes Ohrid and Prespa. A personal journey attack the roots of my maternal affinity line becomes an meditation on disturbances and reconciliation.
Elixir (Cape) dives into representation symbiotic web of people, place present-day plants along the Mesta River obscure searches for collective healing.
Anima, a vigorous pastoral (Cape) is a potrayal avail yourself of Europe’s modern pastoralists. The story quite good set on the flanks of Pirin Mountain where I lived with a- pastoral community for a season.
I’ve served on the jury panels for representation Prix Jan Michalski, the Highland Emergency supply Prize, the Neustadt Prize, the 2019 Jihlava Documentary Film Festival, the Omnipresent Dublin Book Award. In 2020-2021, Mad was non-resident Fellow at the Vienna Institute for Human Sciences (IWM).
The Belly of Our Lives, a found-footage pick up with my words premiered in 2024 at the Movies That Matter Anniversary in the Hague.
For many years Frenzied have lived by the Beauly String in the Highlands of Scotland. Draw out 2026 I will publish my prime book with a Highland setting: Borrowed Land, a Highland Story (Cape).