Time Shelter

Synopsis

WINNER OF THE INTERNATIONAL BOOKER PRIZE 2023
A GUARDIAN AND FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR

In Time Shelter, an enigmatic flâneur named Gaustine opens a ‘clinic for the past’ that offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s sufferers: each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail, transporting patients back in time.

As Gaustine’s assistant, the 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 from the horrors of our present – a development that results in an unexpected conundrum when the past begins to invade the present.

Intricately crafted, and eloquently translated by Angela Rodel, Time Shelter cements Georgi Gospodinov’s reputation as one of the indispensable writers of our times, a major voice in international literature.

Author

Georgi Gospodinov was born in Yambol, Bulgaria, in 1968. His works have been translated into thirty-five languages and shortlisted for more than a dozen international prizes. He won the 2016 Jan Michalski Prize for Literature, the 2019 Angelus Central European Literature Award and the 2021 Strega European Prize. His novel Time Shelter won the 2023 International Booker Prize.