KAPKA KASSABOVA'S BORDER WINS BRITISH ACADEMY'S PRIZE

We are pleased and happy to announce that Vagabond's long-standing contributor, Kapka Kassabova, has just won the 2018 British Academy’s Nayef Al-Rodhan Prize for Global Cultural Understanding worth £25,000.

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Border, her memoir-cum-travelogue about Bulgaria's southeastern frontier from Communism to the present, was published in 2017 to international acclaim. The book explores the history, trauma and memories of a region that brings together three Balkans states: Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey. According to the jury, Border won because it "contributed to global cultural understanding" and "illuminates the interconnections and divisions that shape cultural identity worldwide."

Since its publication, Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe was shortlisted for several major prizes, and won the 2017 Saltire Book of the Year Award in Scotland.

Bulgarian-born Kapka Kassabova has lived in New Zealand and is currently based in Scotland. She writes fiction, non-fiction and poetry in English, and has become one of the most recognisable voices of Bulgaria. She has been with Vagabond from the very start. More on Border here.

Earlier this year Kapka Kassabova wrote the introductory essay to The High Road, Photography From Scotland, a photography exhibition by Vagabond editor Anthony Georgieff, displayed in Sofia, Burgas and Veliko Tarnovo.

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