In the Valley at the End of Time

Elixir

A Voyage into Alchemy

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. 
 
Pre-order Kapka Kassabova’s new book, Anima: A Wild Pastoral, now 
 
‘Kassabova had me under her spell from page one’ 
GUARDIANOver several seasons, Kapka Kassabova spends time with the men and women of this magical region. She witnesses their rare knowledge, not only of mountain plants and the ancient practice of herbalism, but also of how to transform collective suffering into healing. Elixir is, at its heart, an urgent, hopeful call to rethink how we live – in relation to one another, and to the world around us.* Shortlisted for the Highland Book Prize 2023 *‘Dark and mysterious and beautiful’ 
FINANCIAL TIMES‘Uplifting and beautifully written’ 
MARK COCKER, SPECTATOR‘Extraordinary’ 
COUNTRY LIFE

The mark of a good book is that it changes you. Sometimes a little, sometimes a lot. Nan Shepherd, Robin Wall Kimmerer and Jay Griffiths have all wielded that power over me, but I&rsquo;ve rarely been so aware of an internal change being wrought, word by word, as I have these past days immersed in Kapka Kassabova&rsquo;s alchemical prose. I fancy she had me under her spell from page one

Her ability to bring out the best in her subjects is born of a genuine horror at the unsustainability of the ways we live... But Elixir is not a lecture... Like the forests and fells it inhabits, it is by turns dark and mysterious and beautiful. Ecologically minded writing can often tell too much and show too little, but Kassabova sensibly lets the landscape and locals do the talking.

Uplifting and beautifully written... Elixir provides a glorious cycle of stories and personal testimonies.

Subtle prose that mingles empathy with perspective.

Humanity glitters under her gaze in all its facets. Her prose is spectacularly good and her storytelling is a joy.

A laudable attempt to record an endangered region and a disappearing way of life.

In her captivating latest, Kassabova transports us to the Mesta River in her native Bulgaria... Kassabova finds hope that this ancient knowledge still has the power to heal us.

Extraordinary... She allows her book to grow and swell, like a symphony, expanding and deepening its themes until the traditional wisdom and life of the mountain envelopes you entirely. Rather like a spell, in fact.

It soars with the luminous prose and unflinching honesty we have come to expect from this brilliantly gifted writer. Elixir is an extraordinary, profoundly moving book... Her prose is breathtaking, the stories heartbreaking.

A joyous celebration of the Pomak community in southern Bulgaria.

Kapka Kassabova is a poet and prose writer and, most recently, the author of Elixir (2023), To the Lake (2020) and Border (2017). Border won a British Academy Prize, the Scottish Book of the Year, Stanford-Dolman Travel Book of the Year, the Highland Book Prize and the Prix Nicholas Bouvier. It was also a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. The French edition of To the Lake won the Prix du Meilleur Livre Etranger (non-fiction). Kassabova grew up in Sofia, Bulgaria, and studied in New Zealand. Today she lives by a river in the Scottish Highlands. Anima is the final book in her Balkan quartet exploring the relationship between humans and their environment, following Border, To the Lake, and Elixir.

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 
 
'Uplifting and beautifully written' SPECTATOR 
'Dark and mysterious and beautiful' FINANCIAL TIMES 
'Exceptional' BBC WILDLIFE 
 
Over several seasons, Kassabova spends time with the people of this magical region. She meets women and men who work in a long lineage of foragers, healers and mystics. She learns about wild plants and the ancient practice of herbalism, and experiences a symbiotic system where nature and culture have blended for thousands of years. Through her captivating encounters we come to feel the devastating weight of the ecological and cultural disinheritance that the people of this valley have suffered. Yet, in her search for elixir, she also finds reasons for hope. The people of the valley are keepers of a rare knowledge, not only of mountain plants and their properties, but also of how to transform collective suffering into healing. 
 
Immersive and enthralling, at its heart Elixir is a search for a cure to what ails us in the Anthropocene. It is an urgent call to rethink how we live - in relation to one another, to the Earth and to the cosmos.

Kapka Kassabova

A book that mesmerises with its sense of adventure and epic sweep, this is creative nonfiction at its best.

A haunting, beautiful book from what feels a darkly enchanted land. Kassabova is an extraordinary writer who slips into the skin of a place. Fiercely intelligent, scalpel-sharp, at once romantic and toughly pragmatic: Anima will live with me for a long time

Cal Flyn, author of ISLANDS OF ABANDONMENT

Anima is a masterwork and a profound and important book. Kassabova is writing about how we forgot the land and our animals and banished many tribes. In doing so, we lost our soul. Anima is a treasure of nature writing and people writing, a classic in the making for our times

Monique Roffey, author of THE MERMAID OF BLACK CONCH

[Kassabova is] iron-hard and courageous, both on the page and in life... Roaming across the high pastures, Kassabova sees all our lives with clarity

Anima is what happens when an extraordinary writer and dauntless explorer discovers a wild and ancient way of life still, somehow, surviving in Europe's remotest wilderness. This is a beautiful book of passion and adventure. It asks: who are we, what have we done and how shall we live? Kapka Kassabova stops at nothing, including risking her life, on her quest to see deeply, live fully, to learn, and teach, constantly. She is simply sublime

Kapka Kassabova’s new book is an extraordinary work of exploration, both inner and outer. It should be required reading for everyone thinking about our human environment: which is to say, all of us.

The poet laureate of the margins... "Must I squeeze my experiences into such a small space when they are so much larger?" This question suffuses Kassabova's incandescent book, and she poses it relentlessly, in spare, hard prose - prose worthy of the rock and the raven

Kapka Kassabova has written a series of fascinating, idiosyncratic, often poetic non-fiction books which deal with issues of place, culture and identity… Her goal is to find some solutions to mankind’s broken relationship with nature. That’s a marker of her ambition as a writer. And her writing is worthy of it

At once a dirge and a praise song for pastoralism... At turns muscular, tender, and sublime, this book is one of the finest testimonies for saving the earth, and our humanity, that I've ever read. It is unforgettable

In prose as fierce and beautiful as the landscapes and lifeways it describes, Anima documents the vanishing connection between people, dogs, sheep and wildlife that once tied together much of the ancient world. This book is at once a testament and a mending and a blessing, full of glory and sorrow, and characters both human and animal who you will never forget.

Sy Montgomery, author of SECRETS OF THE OCTOPUS

Remarkable… [Kassabova’s] lyrical evocation of a dying way of life lingers long in the mind

Times Literary Supplement, *Books of the Year*

This is a lyrical, if melancholy, book that captures an ancient community in a moment of flux

My generation’s great travel writer… [Anima is] another triumph in her Bulgarian quartet

Fascinating... At its heart, this is an emotional story about the bonds between humans, animals, and the land

Kassabova possesses a gift that’s bestowed on only the best of travel writers: an ability to zero in on characters who illuminate the condition of a place in time

[Kassabova] writes both wistfully and incisively about the experience

The language of Kapka’s books is captivating, and they are imbued with her insightful perception into the psychology of humans, animals, plants and landscapes

The book I relished most [this year] was…Anima… Kassabova’s prose, lyrical but unsentimental, brings you into the heart of this landscape and community, and…confronts the reader with questions about what it means to be human

She had me under her spell from page one

Uplifting and beautifully written.

Aromatic, lyrical, disturbing – and very, very fine

Border brilliantly reveals the effects of a millennium of kaleidoscopic shifting. Thoughtful and impressive

Kapka Kassabova

Praise for Anima

A book that mesmerises with its sense of adventure and epic sweep, this is creative nonfiction at its best.

A haunting, beautiful book from what feels a darkly enchanted land. Kassabova is an extraordinary writer who slips into the skin of a place. Fiercely intelligent, scalpel-sharp, at once romantic and toughl ...

Anima is a masterwork and a profound and important book. Kassabova is writing about how we forgot the land and our animals and banished many tribes. In doing so, we lost our soul. Anima is a treasure o ...

A book that mesmerises with its sense of adventure and epic sweep, this is creative nonfiction at its best.

A haunting, beautiful book from what feels a darkly enchanted land. Kassabova is an extraordinary writer who slips into the skin of a place. Fiercely intelligent, scalpel-sharp, at once romantic and toughl ...

Anima is a masterwork and a profound and important book. Kassabova is writing about how we forgot the land and our animals and banished many tribes. In doing so, we lost our soul. Anima is a treasure o ...

A book that mesmerises with its sense of adventure and epic sweep, this is creative nonfiction at its best.

A haunting, beautiful book from what feels a darkly enchanted land. Kassabova is an extraordinary writer who slips into the skin of a place. Fiercely intelligent, scalpel-sharp, at once romantic and toughl ...

Anima is a masterwork and a profound and important book. Kassabova is writing about how we forgot the land and our animals and banished many tribes. In doing so, we lost our soul. Anima is a treasure o ...

Books by Kapka Kassabova

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter