"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.…
"This is a highly unusual book. Two of the books on the shortlist, Border and An Odyssey by Daniel Mendelsohn, are elegiacally written. In terms of pure style, they have slightly more rich or floral writing, which may not be to everyone’s taste. But I thought Border was extraordinarily poetically written. In a strange way, it’s a cross between Eric Newby, who wrote A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush , and Paddy Leigh Fermor. They’re also about travel. “This book was written partly with a grant from Creative Scotland …It’s rather marvellous that small amounts of state funding can underpin the creation of works of literature like this.” She’s also exploring her own roots, because until the age of eight she lived in that region, where Greece meets Turkey meets Bulgaria. And then, age eight, she went to Australia. Later on, she ended up living in Scotland, which is where she is now. And this book was written partly with a grant from Creative Scotland, which is the Arts Council equivalent. It’s rather marvellous that small amounts of state funding can underpin the creation of works of literature like this. So she’s exploring her own background and her own culture, but by going to visit these villages either side of the border she’s exploring something quite profound, which is tribalism, really. There are Muslims, Greek Orthodox and Christians living here. These borders have changed over the centuries. But there are people who identify with the Turks or with the Greeks or with the Bulgarians. There’s references back to some of the changes of border—pogroms, wars, pestilences, famines. It’s just an extraordinary meditation on the nature of borders and the nature of tribalism. When we come together and when we don’t come together. And it’s beautifully written. It’s a most inspiring book. It was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week as well, which I thought was interesting because they are quite careful pickers."
