'Mum, why is everything so ugly?'Misha Glenny is impressed by a poignant memoir of growing up in communist east Europe
Saturday July 5, 2008
The Guardian
Street Without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria
by Kapka Kassabova
Portobello Books, £15.99 , Penguin Books in New Zealand. NZ$30
Britons don't face too much grief when travelling abroad. Everyone has heard of Britain; English is almost ubiquitous and in times of need, most of us can manage a bit of Spanglish or Franglais to see us through. If we face a real crisis, our credit cards and travel insurance will eventually see us home in one piece.
Kapka Kassabova's experience was rather different. While most people in Europe have heard of Bulgaria, very few can claim to know anything about it, its culture and its people.
Read the full review from The Guardian Online.
1 comment:
I'm reading Street Without a Name now, Graham. It is the most wonderful book. Insightful, poignant, funny, angry. The best kind of travel memoir. As Kapka says people in the West don't know Bulgaria at all (one English boy told her it didn't exist anyway it was the name of one of the Wombles)-- but after reading her memoir they will. Pico Iyer endorses the book saying something along the lines that A Street Without A Name has --like the best travel writing -- the force of revelation. Yes.
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