A review by deb_prosp
Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe by Kapka Kassabova

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective tense medium-paced

5.0

This non-fiction memoir is a solid five out of five. Such a compelling read looking at the nature of temporality and borders - how antiquity ebbs and flows into modern history and onto the present. Kassabova etches a path in history and memoir that makes the 21st century feel like a "post-" world while still providing hope for the future. The refugees crises from West Asia cut through centuries of contested identities. For the tripartite border of Bulgaria-Greece-Turkey, questions of European indigeneity and ethnic sovereignty demand justice from centuries of invasion, conquest, and forced exile. Kassabova argues that this under-appreciated part of Eastern Europe blends the lines between lore and law. The occult takes its place in the everyday, and turns history into magic in the process.