Kapka Kasabova Knihy

Pro nezasvěceného je tango prostě tanec, i když tanec exotický a smyslný. Ale pro opravdové tangueros je to něco jako náboženství, které přitahuje zbloudilé, osamělé a nadšené duše svými pevně stanovenými rituály, pocitem sounáležitosti a silným emočním nábojem. Kapka Kassabová vstoupila do tanečního studia poprvé před dvanácti lety a od té doby je ztracená. S hlavou plnou tanga protančila téměř celý svět: od Aucklandu po Edinburgh, od Berlína po Buenos Aires. Hodiny a hodiny trénovala pro pár prchavých chvilek extáze na parketu a život jí přitom znepříjemňovaly puchýře a zlomené srdce. V této jiskřivé, lehce plynoucí próze nás Kapka provází magickým světem tohoto tance a vypráví nám jeho příběh, který se propojil s jejím životem.

Set in the valley of the Mesta, one of the oldest inhabited river valleys in Europe and a nexus for wild plant gatherers, Elixir is an unforgettable exploration of the deep connections between people, plants and placeOver several seasons, Kassabova spends time with the people of this magical region. She meets women and men who work in a long lineage of foragers, healers and mystics. She learns about wild plants and the ancient practice of herbalism, and experiences a symbiotic system where nature and culture have blended for thousands of years. Through her captivating encounters we come to feel the devastating weight of the ecological and cultural disinheritance that the people of this valley have suffered. Yet, in her search for elixir, she also finds reasons for hope. The people of the valley are keepers of a rare knowledge, not only of mountain plants and their properties, but also of how to transform collective suffering into healing.Immersive and enthralling, at its heart Elixir is a search for a cure to what ails us in the Anthropocene. It is an urgent call to rethink how we live - in relation to one another, to the Earth and to the cosmos.

Kapka Kassabova reist ins alte Thrakien, dorthin, wo Bulgarien, Griechenland und die Türkei aufeinandertreffen - und entdeckt verborgene Welten und faszinierende Menschen

From the celebrated author of Border, here is a portrait of an ancient but little-understood corner of Balkans, and a personal reckoning with the past.

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.

To the uninitiated, tango is just a dance. To the true tanguero, it is a way of life - and it has been Kapka's way of life for a decade. Here, in sparkling, spring-heeled prose, Kapka takes us inside the esoteric world of the milonga to tell the story of tango, from its Afro roots to its sequined celebrities and back.

Kassabova was born in Sofia, Bulgaria and grew up under the drab, muddy, grey mantle of one of communism’s most mindlessly authoritarian regimes. Escaping with her family as soon as possible after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, she lived in Britain, New Zealand, and Argentina, and several other places. But when Bulgaria was formally inducted to the European Union she decided it was time to return to the home she had spent most of her life trying to escape. What she found was a country languishing under the strain of transition. This two-part memoir of Kapka’s childhood and return explains life on the other side of the Iron Curtain.

Nadejda is backpacking around New Zealand in the surreal haze of summer. Her encounters are comic and revealing - and often sexual. But Nadejda's tour is a deep and personal one; it is a journey into memory and family myth.

A couple arrive in a dead-end coastal village somewhere in South America. The only place to stay is Villa Pacifica, part hotel and part animal sanctuary run by eccentric ex-pats. Travel guide-writer Ute and her husband Jerry are joined by an assortment of travellers: in-your-face American Max; sporty flight attendants from Australia; musicians Luis and Helga - all looking for something out of the ordinary. Ute begins to meet the locals and explore the villa's surrounds. She senses that the place taps into her most intimate fears. Its disturbances may well be beyond the rational mind. Soon, personalities and relationships begin to crack. When a huge storm descends on the coast, travellers and locals are thrown back on their own devices. The hot-house world that prowls below the surface of Villa Pacifica rises to engulf everyone. Madness begins to take hold. An ever-present air of sensuality and danger haunts Kapka Kassabova's new novel. Villa Pacifica is an exotic romp through a place where the primal, spiritual and cerebral collide. This is a visceral, gripping story from one of New Zealand's most talented writers.

'A classic in the making for our times' MONIQUE ROFFEY 'Haunting, beautiful...Anima will live with me for a long time' CAL FLYN 'A beautiful book of passion and adventure... She is simply sublime' HORATIO CLARE The spellbinding new book by the prizewinning writer Kapka Kassabova tells the story of her time with the last moving pastoralists in Europe: a gripping portrayal of human-animal interdependence, and a plea for a different way of living. Living with one of these communities over the course of one summer, Kassabova experiences the intensity, brutality, beauty and isolation of their existence. She witnesses the epic, orchestrated activity of transhumance - the seasonal movement of vast herds of sheep, along with shepherds and dogs. As she becomes attuned to the sacrifices inherent in this work and the rich histories that shaped this Balkan region, Kassabova finds herself drawn deeper into the tangled relationships at the heart of the small community. Anima is an extraordinary portrayal of pastoral life, where humans and animals exist in profound interdependence. Kassabova conjures the spirit of this remarkable place with intimacy and empathy, and helps us imagine how we might all begin to heal our broken relationship with the natural world.