From a writer who is as dazzling on the dance-floor as she is on the page, here is the hidden story of tango: the world's most passionate dance.
Kapka Kassabova first set foot in a tango studio ten years ago and, from that moment, she was hooked. With the beat of tango driving her on and the music filling her head, she's danced across the world, from Auckland to Edinburgh, from Berlin to Buenos Aires, putting in hours of practice for fleeting moments of dance-floor ecstasy, suffering blisters and heart-break along the way.
Here, in sparkling, spring-heeled prose, Kapka takes us inside the esoteric world of tango to tell the story of the dance, from its Afro roots to its sequined stars and back. Twelve Minutes of Love is a timeless tale of exile and longing, death and desire, love and belonging.
Kapka Kassabova was born in Bulgaria in 1973 and now lives in Edinburgh. She is the author of two poetry collections, two travel guides, numerous travel essays, the novel Villa Pacifica (2011) and the acclaimed memoir Street Without a Name: Childhood and Other Misadventures in Bulgaria (2008). She has written for the Sunday Times, the Guardian, Vogue, and Granta.com. www.twelveminutesoflove.com