Border: A Journey to the Edge of Europe

"Once near a border, it is impossible not to be involved, not to want to exorcise or transgress something." The border Kassabova is drawn to is the territory where Turkey, Greece, and her native Bulgaria meet, but for all the wonderful specificity of her portraits of the people who live and travel through there—smugglers, refugees, cops, generous hosts, opportunists, and a whole history of Ottomans, Stalinists, and the forgotten pawns of empire—she also evokes the distorting, destructive, seductive effects those arbitrary national edges have on all of us. With the observant humor of Elif Batuman, the eerie historical gravity of W.G. Sebald, and an open-minded, world-weary curiosity all her own, her Border is a fantastic, fascinating book for our time or any time.