These are new poems that speak from different parts of the world and from different moments of history but always of the many ways of being lost and alienated in a place: in the past; in fear; in love; in the very quickness of life. The voices here, from a Roman housewife to a Chinese bar-owner in Berlin or an Argentine DJ, are those of the heart-sick, the culturally disorientated, temporary dwellers in cities, lives, destinies. Colourful, haunting, funny, bitter-sweet, the poems in Geography for the Lost mirror the restlessness of the human condition in Kassabova's best book yet.

Author Biography

Kapka Kassabova describes herself as 'a poet, travel writer, novelist, and professionally displaced person'. Born in Sofia, Bulgaria, in 1973 she emigrated as a young adult to New Zealand, where she studied French and linguistics and subsequently completed an MA in Creative Writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters, Victoria University of Wellington, under the directorship of Bill Manhire. Since moving to New Zealand she has also lived in France, Germany, England and, currently, Scotland. 'Although I find myself living in Britain at the moment, New Zealand remains my permanent base and the place which transformed me from a migrant into a traveller, from a double citizen into a cultural hybrid.' Kassabova has been writing poems since she was 8 years old. As a high school student in Sofia she was a member of the young writers' club and had work published in the leading literary journal Mother Tongue. She began writing in English, her fourth language, when she was 19 and says she couldn't now write in any other language. She has written three previous collections of poetry All Roads Lead to the Sea (AUP, 1997), Dismemberment (AUP, 2000) and Someone Else's Life (AUP/Bloodaxe, 2003), two acclaimed novels, travel guides and many pieces of travel journalism. Kassabova has received awards for her writing across all her genres: her first collection of poems, All Roads Lead to the Sea won the NZSA Jessie Mackay Award for the First Best Book of Poetry; her first novel Reconnaissance won the 2000 Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Book in the South-East Asia?Pacific Region and was shortlisted in the Montana NZ Books Awards; she won the 2002 Cathay Pacific NZ Travel Writer of the Year Award. She has also won many awards including a scholarship for original French poetry and French studies, the 1999 Buddle Finlay Sargeson Literary Fellowship, the 2002/2003 CNZ/DAAD Berlin Residency and Arts Council grants in 2004 (British; Literature) and 2005 (Scottish; Travel). Kassabova plans to return to New Zealand in May 2007 to promote Geography for the Lost and to make author appearances, including at the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival.