The New Statesman
•71% Informative
Georgi Gospodinov's novel Time Shelter won the 2023 International Booker Prize.
In the novel the narrator meets Gaustine, a history enthusiast who opens a clinic for the past’ in Zurich.
The novel raises very personal questions about the ethics of reviving someone’s memory.
Gospodinov is the first Bulgarian author to win the International Booker Prize.
Time Shelter's closing scene, a re-enactment of the German invasion of Poland on 1 September 1939, is eerily prescient of Vladimir Putin’s attack on Ukraine in 2022.
He set up a website to which people could submit their stories, and visited those who were not online, in towns and villages across the country. The project was published as a book, I Have Lived Socialism. “It was a problem in the beginning,” he recalled. “People forgot to tell their stories, because communism was not interested in personal stories. They suppress personal stories. For me this everyday memory was important. This is the real way to work with memory.” [See also: Europe’s false dawn].
VR Score
66
Informative language
58
Neutral language
59
Article tone
informal
Language
English
Language complexity
42
Offensive language
possibly offensive
Hate speech
not hateful
Attention-grabbing headline
not detected
Known propaganda techniques
not detected
Time-value
long-living
External references
5
Source diversity
4
Affiliate links
no affiliate links