Safe Return Doubtful

translated from the Bulgarian by Izidora Angel – published 2026

This is a great example of what the publisher, Sandorf Passage, do so well. Originally Zagreb based, now with an offshoot in Maine, they are a ‘nonprofit that publishes work that creates a prismatic perspective on what it means to live in a globalized world. It is a home to writing inspired by both conflict zones and the dangers of complacency.’ It’s wonderful that they have recognition by way of the International Booker Longlist for this book.

This is Bulgarian writer Karabash’s debut novel and set in the Accursed mountains of Albania, a place that I have visited and enjoyed for its hiking and wilderness. The community she focuses on are still greatly influenced by the Kanun, unwritten historic law dating back to the 1400s. It highlights honour, hospitality, but is also strictly patriarchal, and has sometimes violent laws involving blood feuds.
Two aspects of the society play significant roles in the novel; firstly, when Bekija, or Matija as she chooses to be known, declares she will become a ‘sworn virgin’ rather than marry, and secondly, when a member of her family must be killed as a result of the cancelled wedding.

Karabash’s style of writing, poetic at times, and with long sentences barely punctuated, will not be to everyone’s liking. She may have gained more readers with a more traditional style, but it serves to stress the contrast between the beauty and tranquility of the landscape and the violence of the community very well, as well as emphasising the similarity, that neither has changed for six hundred years.

My GoodReads score 4 / 5