We speak the same language: A conversation between Nikoleta Kerinska and Kapka Kassabova

Résumé

A few years ago, while strolling through the Latin Quarter and looking at the bookshop windows, my gaze was attracted by a cover : an expressive line drawing depicting hills covered in wild herbs, with a birch tree in the foreground, then a village nestled in the mountains and the horizon – an irregular curve cutting across the pale blue sky, above which I read Eliksir. All of it felt familiar to me, almost intimate, and that feeling was confirmed when I noticed the author’s name: Kapka Kassabova. I didn’t know her, but I was certain – she was Bulgarian. For a few moments, I let my eyes wander again over the book’s cover, then I went in and bought it. That was my first encounter with Kapka Kassabova’s writing. From the very first pages, I was immersed in a magical world where nature, animals and humans coexist like organs of the same body, like elements of a single organism. Eliksir is a poetic cure, a dream and a revelation, a journey from which we emerge transformed and renewed, inspired to seek true happiness. This journey led me to the publication of this issue of Estado da arte and to the dialogue that follows