Kapka Kassabova
KAPKA KASSABOVA is a poet, novelist and writer of narrative non-fiction. She grew up in Sofia, Bulgaria, and now lives in the Scottish Highlands. Her acclaimed memoirs Street Without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria (2008) and Twelve Minutes of Love: A Tango Story (2011) were followed by Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe (2017) which won the British Academy’s Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding, the Saltire Scottish Book of the Year, the Edward Stanford-Dolman Travel Book of the Year, and the inaugural Highlands Book Prize. It was short-listed for the Baillie-Gifford Prize, the Bread and Roses Prize, the Duff Cooper Prize, the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje Prize, the National Book Critics Circle Awards (USA), and the Gordon Burn Prize. Her most recent book is To the Lake: A Balkan Journey of War and Peace (2020). She has written for the Guardian, Vogue, and 1843 magazine. Her new book Elixir will be published in 2023. kapka-kassabova.net
Publications
Kapka Kassabova on Granta.com
Essays & Memoir | Issue 151
The Lake
Kapka Kassabova
‘The chalky mountain separates the lake from its higher, non-identical twin, but only overground. Underground, they are connected. Ohrid and Prespa: two lakes, one ecosystem.’
Essays & Memoir | Issue 157
The Ninth Spring: One Day at the Kolibi
Kapka Kassabova
Kapka Kassabova visits the Osmanovi family in the southern Balkans.
Essays & Memoir | Issue 119
The Magic Place
Kapka Kassabova
‘My arrival in Edinburgh seven years ago was almost a blind date.’
Essays & Memoir | Issue 110
Lunch with the Surgeon
Kapka Kassabova
‘Last month, a plastic surgeon in Buenos Aires tried to seduce me.’
In Conversation | Issue 110
Edinburgh Book Festival Special | Podcast
Kapka Kassabova & Peter Stamm
In this special Edinburgh Book Festival edition of the Granta Podcast Laura Barber talks to Kapka Kassabova (Street Without a Name, Twelve Minutes of Love) and Peter Stamm (Seven Years) about the often paradoxical relationship between writing and place.