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Editorial Reviews

Poet and essayist Kapka Kassabova reveals glimpses from behind the Iron Curtain in Street Without a Name. As a teenager, Kassabova left Bulgaria for New Zealand and later the United Kingdom. In her memoir, she writes not only about her Communist-era childhood but her decision to return to her home country as an adult.

Kassabova recalls growing up in a crumbling communist apartment block and her struggles learning Russian. Returning to the post-Communist country, she sees a new element of lawlessness. Through her personal experiences, we see distilled a country’s essence and the enormous changes it’s experienced in the last half century.

Narrator Emily Gray offers a rueful performance, with a British accent, about one woman’s search for her cultural identity.

Publisher's Summary

Kassabova was born in Sofia, Bulgaria, and grew up under the drab, muddy, gray mantle of one of communism’s most mindlessly authoritarian regimes. Escaping with her family as soon as possible after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, she lived in Britain, New Zealand, and Argentina, and several other places. But when Bulgaria was formally inducted to the European Union she decided it was time to return to the home she had spent most of her life trying to escape. What she found was a country languishing under the strain of transition. This two-part memoir of Kapka’s childhood and return explains life on the other side of the Iron Curtain.
©2009 Kapka Kassabova (P)2013 Audible, Inc.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

This book took me back in time

Good book. I found many of the stories from post communist Bulgaria painfully familiar especially the ones with the family members.
The communist system produced a few lost generations of confused souls with stories that are difficult to explain to somebody coming from a free world.

  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars

Very revealing of life behind iron curtain

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

Very revealing of life behind iron curtain. These things you need to know. Be prepared though; some of the recalled events will break your heart.

What aspect of Emily Gray’s performance would you have changed?

She's not the best ready. Didn't do very well with voices of different characters.