« Anima » – a book of inhalation
« Anima » by Kapka Kasabova
Translation from English Nevena Dishlieva-Krasteva, ICU Publishing House, 2025
You open the unknown book on the first page. You read three sentences. According to researchers in the fourth sentence, you have almost decided whether to take it or return it to the shelf. I opened this book at random and came across a short sentence. And I already knew that the book would attract me, fascinated, dragged. The sentence read: « The herd poured over the hill like mercury »S I imagined the green, heard the vats, felt the rhythm of the sheep movement and the approach of the shepherd, my dogs were measured.
And all this could not be separated into parts, it was indivisible, it was whole. And to try to fall apart, it is still gathering. Each part attracts the rest, like mercury. And again, and again, man, horses, sheep and dogs are one. Creatures who carry a common soul, animation.
« Throwing into the unknown. » Drop Kasabova, which describes the invisible threads between people
In the fourth book in the Balkan series of Kapka Kasabova, there are everything from the previous three – there is a « border », there is « to the lake », there is also « Elixir ». The border is not only present because when the shepherd goes to a place where he can grab a signal for his mobile phone, if there is a wind, on the screen he « welcomes » Welcome to Northern Macedonia « , and » Welcome to Greece « . The border is between the mountain peaks, between the bottom and the top, between people and times, and it divides, and unites. And here « to the lake » is a place you always travel to and you don’t arrive. Only « elixir » this time is not from places, but from Struma.
| The four books are four couplets of the same Balkan song that sounds in the soul, animation. Kapka Kasabova’s « Anima » is already traveling from ICU publishing house to its readers. |
I read a book in which everything is not just truth, but also very real – I tell a friend. « You love non -fiction, » he reminds me. Oh, this style cannot be called non -fiction. « So it’s a novel, » he concludes. And this is not, in novels it is a very important story, here it is not the most important. The magic, the enchantment is important here. « Is it one of those esoteric? » Nothing like this, everything is real, seen, heard, touched, smelled, tasty. « But is it modern? » How can I tell you, it’s contemporary, but there is also a lot of story about things you have gone, how can I say – somehow eternal. « Well, at least say the topic, » he insists. If I tell you with the right terms, you won’t tell you much – pastoralism, transhumans, nomadism. « You may not believe it, but I know what transhumans is – mobile cattle breeding, but what is specific about in the book that I still don’t understand why you are so impressed? »
Kapka Kasabova: It is no longer possible to hide from our own collective shade
There are sheep, goats, dogs, horses, Bulgarians, Karakachans, katunari, rugs, cinzari, yuruci, all this human grunt, which has been put on the Pirin and Struma Gorge. Communities that are the other in the eyes of the majority. There are trails that are not marked in Google And somewhere around them, a vertebly -headed chill is wandering. But one of the dogs is following him and will not allow himself to be lost. No one has commanded the rusty Karakachan dog to do it. It has such a birth order.
And away from these paths, bears and wolves lurk. There is a lot of milk that connects you to life as a umbilical cord. There are Karakachan huts with icons. There are dangerous amounts of brandy because it is a place where the expression « does not drink » means « he is not a complete alcoholic ». There are fates, stories. And a very generous nature of nature, you want to be a shepherd. But it’s not a job for people with a big ego.
| A good shepherd is not the center – writes in the book – the flock is in the center. There are men with carved faces and silk hearts, as well as men with hearts, small and hard as buttons. Sometimes these men are quarreled for nothing, but therefore irreversibly, as in these lands. There are historical and statistical reports. And in this whole multiple there is only one law, one logic: this is right here! |
Kapka Kasabova: The craziest insists the most is right
« And is there, » he begins. I know what you will ask me, yes, there is love. And when it appears, the book begins to shine. And you no longer wonder what this book is for. You know it’s about love, every love and all love. But do not expect this love to be described with glances, caresses, passions. It is described so that you have to imagine your eyes, caresses, passions. Just a man and a woman who breathe next to each other, talk a little, but have said everything.
| Such love that you wonder which pain to choose – the pain of separation or the pain of life together. « And how was this book born? » he asks more. The most natural way things are born. Kapka Kasabova goes for three months in one place, where several men and women have been playing to maintain the breeds and the tradition of mobile shepherds and lives among them and with them. |
In this world there is a way where life hibernates. The lower world is horizontal and empty. In it, the most magical thing is milking, it is like meditation, not like a prayer. And there is upstairs, on the mountain peak, where shepherds cumulate the herds during the summer season to take them to grazing. The upper world is steep and throbbed by life.
The author has lived in both the lower and the upper ground. Imagine a man shooting all this with his own eyes – the way he runs. But then he does not choose good shots and does not cut the bad ones, he projected it with words without installation. So I say it’s true and real. « Yeah, » says my friend, « Truman Capoti goes to Ohio, investigating that terrible crime, and writes » coolly « , a combination of journalism and fiction. »
« To the Lake » of Kapka Kasabova won the Best Translation Award in France
It can be said so, but there is poetry, philosophy, history, and awareness, everything that can gather a soul, animation. « Such a genre must be introduced, » says a book about the soul. » And with that he reminds me of an incident from the book itself. In it, the author tells that a writer liked to say, « I’m looking for a book to read, I don’t find it and I write it. «
In my case, I’m looking for a book to read … Jaya, Kapka Kasabova wrote it.
