The only word that can be used to adequately describe Kapka’s work is ‘mesmerizing.’ The effect either of reading her writing or of listening to her speak is one of being swept into what feels like an alternate dimension, where everything is tinged with a kind of numinosity and wonder.

To experience the vividness of her perspective once is to seek its repeated encounter — and, fortunately for us, it can be found throughout what are currently more than a dozen of her published books and countless interviews. I’m delighted, with our conversation, to have added to this rich collection of transporting exchanges.

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Kapka Kassabova is a multigenre writer of narrative non-fiction, poetry, and fiction. Border, the first book in her Balkan quartet, won a British Academy Prize, the Scottish Book of the Year, the  ...