International Booker Prize 2023: All You Need To Know About Winners Georgi Gospodinov, Angela Rodel

'Time Shelter', written by Georgi Gospodinov and translated by Angela Rodel became the first book written in Bulgarian to win the Booker Prize.

Time Shelter, written by Georgi Gospodinov and translated by Angela Rodel became the first book written in Bulgarian to win the Booker Prize.

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Bulgarian Writer Georgi Gospodinov and his translator Angela Rodel have won the International Booker Prize for the novel 'Time Shelter'. It is the first book written in Bulgarian to win the Booker Prize. The name was announced at an event in London.

Who Are The Author And Translator?

The author of this book Georgi Gospodinov was born in Yambol, Bulgaria. According to The Booker Prizes' official website, Gospodinov is the most translated and internationally awarded Bulgarian writer to emerge after the fall of communism. His works has been translated to acclaim in 25 languages.

Gospodinov was described by La Repubblica as ‘a Proust from the East’. His novels have been shortlisted for more than a dozen international prizes. The list includes the PEN Literary Award for Translation, the Premio Gregor von Rezzori, the Bruecke Berlin Preis, and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt Literaturpreis. He won the 2016 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature and the 2019 Angelus Literature Central Europe Prize, among others. 

The Translator: Angela Rodel

The translator of this book, Angela Rodel is a literary translator, musician, and actor who lives and works in Bulgaria. Hailing from Minnesota, United States, Rodel holds degrees from Yale and UCLA. She has received NEA and PEN translation grants. Her translation of Gospodinov’s The Physics of Sorrow won the National Book Center’s 2015 Peroto Prize for best translation from Bulgarian, the 2016 AATSEEL Prize for Best Book of Literary Translation and was nominated for the three most prestigious translation awards in the US: finalist for the 2016 PEN Translation Prize, the 2016 National Translation Award from the American Literary Translators Association, and Three Percent’s Best Translated Book Award for 2016.

In 2014 she was awarded Bulgarian citizenship for her translation work and contribution to Bulgarian culture.

What Is The Time Shelter All About ?

A ‘clinic for the past’ offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s sufferers: each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail, transporting patients back in time. 

An unnamed narrator is tasked with collecting the flotsam and jetsam of the past, from 1960s furniture and 1940s shirt buttons to scents, and even afternoon light. But as the rooms become more convincing, an increasing number of healthy people seek out the clinic as a ‘time shelter’, hoping to escape the horrors of modern life - a development that results in an unexpected conundrum when the past begins to invade the present.