In twenty-five short chapters, Gospodinov explores how smugglers, writers and translators are all involved in transporting whatever may be desired, valued, missing, repressed, or forbidden. He adds a melancholic tone to his exploration by focusing on his childhood in Communist Bulgaria, and on the fantasies of other lives and other places that this childhood engendered. Drawings made specially to accompany the text, by award-winning Bulgarian animation and graphic artist Theodore Ushev, complete the cahier, adding a further layer to its exposition of border-crossing.
