Kapka Kassabova

"We get our sense of music in a language from lullabies, from baby language, from talking to dogs..."

Ryan asks the staff of the Scottish Poetry Library which poetry books they'd recommend for seasonal gifts, and catches up with multi-talented writer Kapka Kassabova for a scintillating interview.

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First published 11 December, 2009

Kapka Kassabova

Kapka Kassabova was happily raised in Sofia and educated by her scientist parents, the French College in Sofia, and two New Zealand universities. In 1990, her family moved to England, and later to New Zealand. In her twelve years in New Zealand, Kapka made year-long escapes to France and Germany, but 4 years ago she moved back to Britain and now lives in Edinburgh. She describes herself as a happy cultural mongrel.

Kapka has published two books of poetry: Someone else's life (2003) and Geography for the Lost (2007). Her first novel Reconnaissance was published in New Zealand, Japan, and Israel, and won the 2000 Commonwealth best first novel award for Asia-Pacific. In the last few years Kapka has turned to travel writing and journalism. Her travel essays were twice recipients of the NZ Cathay Pacific Travel Writer of the Year award, and she writes the occasional travel guide to keep her head above water and her feet on the road.

Her travel memoir of her Cold War childhood and the love and hate relationship she has with their native country, Street Without a Name: childhood and other misadventures in Bulgaria came out in Britain, New Zealand and Bulgaria in 2008, and in the USA in 2009.

• Kapka Kassabova's website
  

About those other recommendations!

Ryan recommends:

• Grain (Picador, 2009) by John Glenday
• All-American Poem (American Poetry Review, 2008) by Matthew Dickman
• In the Becoming: New and Selected Poems (Polygon, 2009) by Tom Pow
• The Darwin Poems (University of West Australia Press, 2008) by Emily Ballou
• The Forward Book of Poetry 2010 (Faber, 2009)

Kapka recommends:

• The Burning of the Books and Other Poems (Bloodaxe, 2009) by George Szirtes
• Opal Sunset: Selected Poems, 1958-2008 (W.W. Norton & Co.) by Clive James

Jane recommends:

• Kin: Scottish Poems About Family (Polygon, 2009) edited by Hamish Whyte
• Silver: An Aberdeen Anthology (Polygon, 2009) edited by Alan Spence and Hazel Hutchison

Lilias recommends:

• The Making of a Sonnet: A Norton Anthology
  (W. W. Norton & Co., 2009) edited by Edward Hirsch and Eavan Boland

Dave recommends:

• Rain (Faber, 2009) by Don Paterson

Peggy recommends:

• Natural Mechanical (CB Editions, 2009) by J O Morgan
  

We recommend...

	Geography for the Lost by Kapka Kassabova Tarset: Bloodaxe, 2007. From a Roman housewife to a Chinese bar-owner in Berlin or an Argentine DJ - these are the voices of the heart-sick, the culturally jet-lagged, people from photographs, the "tenants" of lives, cities and destinies. This is what we all are, have been, or will be. SPL shelfmark 3.Kas
	Natural Mechancial by J O Morgan London: CB Editions, 2009. Being a rendering of the true life of Iain Seoras Rockcliffe, 'by looking hard and exactly at particular things in a particular place, it speaks to everyone, everywhere' - Andrew Motion. Winner of the Aldeburgh Poetry Prize, 2009. SPL shelfmark 3.Mor
	Kin: Scottish Poems About Family edited by Hamish Whyte Edinburgh: Polygon, 2009. Family is the one thing we all know about – whether family gives you strength, or breaks your heart, whether your idea of family stays steadfast through generations, or whether your family is a million miles away from 2.4 kids or rosy-cheeked grannies. This book helps us think about and celebrate family moments and family members. .

Find out more...

• Serach the SPL catalogue and borrow these items

Related links...

• The Costa shortlist
• The Sonnet
• George Orwell's journalism
  

Image: Brown paper packages by Flickr user Pewari Naan