Borrowed Land: A Highland Story

by Kapka Kassabova

'Brave, intense, unexpected, lyrical and troubling' Rory Stewart

'This is a Highland story, but also a global story - a poetic and haunting anatomy of what happens when a world is addicted to extraction' James Crawford

An extraordinary portrait of the Scottish this is an epic and urgent story of destruction and renewal, told through unforgettable encounters with its people.

This is the story of a Scottish glen and its inhabitants, and of how I came to call it my glen.

From the powerful rivers that bring life and prosperity, to the Pictish cairns, undisturbed for centuries and the meadows of bluebells, from which deer emerge, god-like, in a flash, Kapka Kassabova reveals a world that has been abused, but remains achingly beautiful and alive.

In the Highlands, centuries-old connections between the land, nature and people have been, and continue to be, shaken by the forces of colonialism, industry, depopulation and private property speculation.

Borrowed Land tells the stories of those who are working against this the last true Highlanders, fighting to preserve their home.

'Stark and moving. A hymn, a howl and a call to action all at once' Ben Rawlence

'A brilliant, daring and urgent account’ Sally Huband

Genres: Scotland

342 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2026

About the author

Kapka Kassabova was born and raised in Sofia, Bulgaria in the 1970s and 1980s. Her family emigrated to New Zealand just after the fall of the Berlin Wall, and she spent her late teens and twenties in New Zealand where she studied French Literature, and published two poetry collections and the Commonwealth-Writers Prize-winner for debut fiction in Asia-Pacific, Reconnaissance.

In 2004, Kapka moved to Scotland and published Street Without a Name (Portobello, 2008). It is a story of the last Communist childhood and a journey across post-communist Bulgaria. It was short-listed for the Dolman Travel Book Award.

The music memoir Twelve Minutes of Love (Portobello 2011), a tale of Argentine tango, obsession and the search for home, was short-listed for the Scottish Mortgage Investment Trust Book Awards.

Villa Pacifica (Alma Books 2011), a novel with an equatorial setting, came out at the same time.

Border: a journey to the edge of Europe (2017 Granta/ Greywolf) is an exploration of Europe's remotest border region.

Her essays and articles have appeared in The Guardian, The Times Literary Supplement, Vogue, The Sunday Times, The Scottish Review of Books, The NZ Listener, The New Statesman, and 1843 Magazine.

Reviews

[Ian]

I had a loan of this book from Highland Libraries. I knew Kapka Kassabova was a successful author, who grew up in Bulgaria but who now lives not far from Inverness in northern Scotland. You could say that she moved from the south-east edge of Europe to the north-west edge. I suppose I was curious to find out what someone of her background thought of the Scottish Highlands.

As it turned out I wasn’t the right kind of reader for this book. It’s mainly an extended rant about the effects of industrialisation on the Highlands, a process centred on energy generation. It’s true that there is a lot of this happening. The Highlands are a perfect environment for generating electricity from hydro and wind power, and developments of this sort are everywhere. Kassabova is very much a lover of nature, of the traditional use of land, and of spiritual connections between the land and its people. The book relentlessly criticises energy generation projects in the Highlands, and tries to portray local people as being monolithically opposed to them. I would argue that is an over-simplification, and in any case, I felt a 320-page rant against the modern world was overstating the point.

Her technique is basically one where she goes to talk to people, generally those living in very out of the way spots, and to have conversations where both parties say “Isn’t this new development just terrible?” There is some dubious historical information, complete with assertions that are not challenged but rather are presented as facts (one example being a preposterous claim that more people speak Gaelic in Canada than in Scotland).

Perhaps I am being too harsh, since at one point she has to move house because a quarry is developed near her home. I can imagine that was upsetting. She gives names to the villages she lives in, though they aren’t the names by which they are commonly known. She uses literal English translations of the old Gaelic names. I know which villages she is talking about, but maybe she has a good reason for not using their modern names, so I’ll respect that.

Towards the end she gives a description of accompanying a deerstalker on a hunt, and from my limited knowledge the description seemed quite an accurate one.

She’s into folklore and the supernatural. There are lots of references to (amongst other things) ghosts, faeries, “second sight”, the magical power of the rowan tree, and the prophecies of the Brahan Seer (a semi-mythical figure from the 17th century – Brahan is a place name). Actually she does acknowledge that the Brahan Seer probably never existed and that the prophecies are likely amalgamated from those made by a variety of other seers. I wouldn’t disagree with her that many people in the Highlands take these things very seriously, especially if they are from families long-established in the area. It’s just that I’m one of the minority of sceptics.

Her books seem to be loved by many people though, and I’m confident that I will once again be in the minority for not loving this one.