Kapka Kassabova’s acclaimed trilogy set in the Balkans (Border, To The Lake and Elixir) will later this year become a tetralogy. In July Jonathan Cape will publish Anima: A Wild Pastoral, a book in which, it says, Kassabova “reaches further into the spirit of place than she ever has before”.
Anima (Latin for soul) tells of her time with people on the western side of the Pirin Mountains in Bulgaria who are still dedicated to pastoralism — the movement of humans and grazing animals in search of pasture. “Weaving together lyrical writing about place with a sweeping sense of the traumatic histories that have shaped this… region… she shows how environmental change and industrial capitalism are endangering older, sustainable ways of living… But shining through is her indelible portrait of a circulating interdependence of people and animals that might point to a healthier way of life.”