Kapka Kassabova

Kapka Kassabova on Borrowed Land

Essential and revelatory reading. It's full of quiet rage on behalf of the old land - and the health and dignity of the humans that live there - being destroyed by industrial capitalism. It's a wake-up call that exposes the great lie of a profit-driven corporate decarbonisation. Kapka's writing is ferocious and instinctive, and my copy is full of underlined passages and folded corners, so much is there to treasure. -- Kerry Andrew

This is the intimate story of a Scottish glen and its inhabitants, of whom I am one.
From the powerful rivers that bring life and prosperity; to the Pictish cairns, undisturbed for centuries; to the meadows of bluebells, where deer emerge, God-like, in a flash, Kapka Kassabova reveals a world that has been abused, but remains achingly beautiful and alive.
In the Highlands, centuries-old connections between the land, nature and people have been, and continue to be, shaken by the forces of colonialism, industry, depopulation, and private property speculation. Borrowed Land tells the stories of those who are working against this disconnect: the last true Highlanders fighting to preserve their home.
An extraordinary portrait of the Scottish Highlands, this is an epic and urgent story of destruction and renewal, told through encounters with some of the last true Highlanders.

Kapka Kassabova is a prizewinning writer of narrative non-fiction. Her recent Balkan quartet includes Anima (2024), Elixir (2023), To the Lake (2020) and Border (2017). Her awards include a British Academy prize, Scottish Book of the Year, Stanford-Dolman Travel Book of the Year, the Highland Book Prize, Prix Nicolas-Bouvier, Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger, and Premio Mazzotti. Kassabova grew up in Sofia, Bulgaria, and migrated to New Zealand before settling in Scotland twenty years ago. She lives by a Highland river.