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Title details for Border by Kapka Kassabova - Available

Border

A Journey to the Edge of Europe

by Kapka Kassabova
Corrie James
Audiobook
2 of 2 copies available
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2 of 2 copies available
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.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Awards

  • Release date

    September 5, 2017

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781681687988
      • File size: 339004 KB
      • Duration: 11:46:15

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Kassabova's travelogue of Bulgaria, where she spent her early years, and its Balkan neighbors is given an effective narration by Corrie James. Kassabova describes the Balkans as the place that delineated the communist from the non-communist, and still delineates the Christian from the Muslim, Europe from Asia. It is also an area where place, people, and ideas interact. Many of the historical incidents described are tragic--for example, many East Germans tried to escape from communism via Bulgaria into Turkey with often tragic consequences--but we also hear of the farcical as well as the sublime. James's English accent is precise in enunciation, pacing, and expression. Overall, her delivery is academic in tone and sometimes a bit monotonous. Still, the work is fascinating, and one will learn much about an area that is often overlooked. M.T.F. © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      Starred review from May 22, 2017
      In this engrossing travelogue, poet and memoirist Kassabova (Twelve Minutes of Love) returns to her native Bulgaria after 25 years to explore its borders with Turkey and Greece, illuminating the area’s often dark history and the lives of the people living in its shadows. Remembering her country as a site of refuge for individuals fleeing Communist East Germany, she interviews a man who was caught, tortured, and imprisoned by the Stasi in 1971. In Strandja she witnesses the ritualistic bathing of religious icons accompanied by bagpipes and fire walkers and chronicles the unbelievable story of a (supposedly) cursed Thracian archaeological site believed to be an “intergalactic portal.” Throughout, Kassabova presents the border as a metaphor for the threshold of human callousness: once the line has been crossed into cruelty, there is no returning to the country of innocence. Wild animals abound, myths mingle with reality, and Kassabova proves to be a penetrating and contemplative guide through rough terrain. Agent: Jacqueline Ko, the Wylie Agency.

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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