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For thousands of years, humans and grazing animals moved with the seasons in search of pasture. On the flanks of the Pirin Mountains, the last true pastoralists continue this ancient practice as a way of life. Here, the paths are formed by dogs, shepherds, horses and sheep, moving together. Few people survive a whole summer in the alpine highlands, where human lives are as precarious as the lives of animals they care for – or who care for them.
In Anima, Kapka Kassabova lives with one of these communities, experiencing the intensity, brutality, beauty and isolation of their existence over one summer. She witnesses the epic, orchestrated activity of transhumance – the seasonal movement of vast herds of sheep, along with shepherds and dogs. As she becomes attuned to the sacrifices inherent in this work and the rich histories that shaped this Balkan region, Kassabova finds herself drawn deeper into the tangled relationships at the heart of the small community.
Anima is an extraordinary portrayal of pastoral life, where humans and animals exist in profound interdependence. Kassabova conjures the spirit of this remarkable place with intimacy and empathy, and helps us imagine how we might all begin to heal our broken relationship with the natural world.
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.
"A book that mesmerises with its sense of adventure and epic sweep, this is creative nonfiction at its best."
– Guardian
"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"
– Spectator
"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"
– Horatio Clare, author of Heavy Light
"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"
– Herald
"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"
– Imani Perry, author of South to America
"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
"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"
– New York Times
"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"
– Imani Perry
