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 place
Kapka Kassabova is a writer of narrative non-fiction, poetry and fiction. She grew up in Sofia, Bulgaria, spent her twenties in New Zealand, and has lived in Scotland for the last eighteen years. In Border (2017) and To the Lake (2020) she explores the caleidoscopic human geography and ancestry of the southern Balkans. Border won the 2018 British Academy Book Prize for Global Cultural Understanding, the 2018 Edward Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year, the 2017 Saltire Society Book of the Year, the 2018 Highland Book Prize, and a number of European awards. To the Lake was awarded France’s Best Foreign Book of Non-Fiction in 2021. Elixir is the third in what will be a Balkan quartet. Her work is translated into twenty languages.
Author photo credit: T.D.