Fabula in Theory: Georgi Gospodinov

Time Shelter is the third novel by the Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov whose second novel, The Physics of Sorrow, captivated Slovenian audiences at the 2015 Fabula Festival. Published in 2020 and translated into 16 languages, Time Shelter won the Bulgarian Book of the Year Award (2021) and landed on the New Yorker's list of “Best Books of 2022 So Far”. The novel's protagonist is a mysterious therapist Gaustine, jumping back and forth in time. After vanishing for a brief spell, he reappears in Zurich. Gaustine opens a “clinic for the past” that offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s sufferers by recreating the pasts in which they felt most secure: each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail. But, as the rooms become more convincing, an increasing number of healthy people seek out the clinic as a “time shelter”. This development results in an unexpected conundrum when the past begins to invade the present. Switching between different narrative levels, this brilliant satire on humanity addresses the question of how to live with a critical lack of future. An extravagant and brilliantly written novel that once again testifies to Gospodinov's writing skill.

The novel has been translated by Borut Omerzel.

Bulgarian writer, poet and playwright Georgi Gospodinov (born in 1968 in Yambol) is one of the most prominent European voices and the most translated Bulgarian writer since the fall of communism. His first novel, Natural Novel (1999; Slovenian translation 2005) has been translated into more than 20 languages. His critically acclaimed novel The Physics of Sorrow (2011; Slovenian translation 2015) won the Bulgarian Book of the Year Award (2021) and was shortlisted for seven prizes. The first Bulgarian author to win the International Booker's Prize, Gospodinov also writes poetry and plays, and has authored a graphic novel, several books of short stories and an opera libretto. Blind Vaysha, an animated short film adapted from Gospodinov’s philosophical short story, was shortlisted for the 2017 Oscar Awards. He lives wherever his books take him.