Description
Book SynopsisBorn in Sofia, Kapka Kassabova grew up under the last years of Cold War Communism in the 1980s, emigrated after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and has loved and hated her homeland in equal measure ever since. Thirty years later, as Bulgaria was joining the EU club, Kapka revisited the country of her childhood and her own relationship to it to discover just how much it - and she - had changed. With the irreverence of an expat, the curiosity of a visitor, and the soul of a poet, Kassabova brings to life the past and present of Bulgaria, as well as probing the complicated connection between place and mind, between geography and fate.
Trade ReviewA fascinating book - at once evocative, disturbing and chock-a-block full of charm -- Jan Morris
A unique memoir of what it was like to grow up in a Communist satellite country. In the mosaic of books about the bad old days, this book is the piece that was always missing. Now we have it, and it shines -- Clive James
Not many books on the travel shelves have the force of revelation, but this one does ... Kapka Kassabova leads us into a country most of us have hardly read about with an elegant assurance, an acid wit and a heart-rending precision that can make you see the world quite differently. This book is a treasure -- Pico Iyer
