LONDON (AP) 鈥 Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov and translator Angela Rodel won the International Booker Prize on Tuesday for 鈥淭ime Shelter,鈥 a darkly comic novel about the dangerous appeal of nostalgia.
The book beat to the prize, which recognizes fiction from around the world that has been translated into English. The 50,000 pounds ($62,000) in prize money is divided between author and translator.
鈥淭ime Shelter鈥 imagines a clinic that recreates the past, with each floor reproducing a different decade. Intended as a way to help people with dementia unlock their memories, it soon becomes a magnet for people eager to escape the modern world.
Gospodinov, 55, said he began writing his book about 鈥渢he weaponization of nostalgia鈥 in 2016, the year of the election of Donald Trump and the U.K.'s Brexit referendum. He said it was a time when 鈥渁nxiety was in the air.鈥
鈥淚 wanted to write a novel about the monster of the past," he said. "Because you can see in this time 鈥 that populist politics, actually, they paid us with the empty check of the past.鈥
French novelist Leila Slimani, who chaired the judging panel, said it was 鈥渁 brilliant novel full of irony and melancholy.鈥
鈥淚t鈥檚 a very profound work that deals with a contemporary question and also a philosophical question: What happens to us when our memories disappear?" she said.
鈥淏ut it is also a great novel about Europe, a continent in need of a future, where the past is reinvented and where nostalgia can be a poison.鈥
Gospodinov is one of Bulgaria鈥檚 most-translated authors. 鈥淭ime Shelter鈥 has also won Italy鈥檚 Strega European Prize for literature in Italian translation.
The International Booker Prize is awarded every year to a translated work of fiction published in the U.K. or Ireland. It is run alongside the Booker Prize for English-language fiction, which will be handed out in the autumn.
The prize was set up to boost the profile of fiction in other languages 鈥 which accounts for only a small share of books published in Britain 鈥 and to salute the underappreciated work of literary translators.
were Indian writer Geetanjali Shree and American translator Daisy Rockwell for 鈥淭omb of Sand.鈥
Rodel said she was grateful to the prize for rejecting the belief that that 鈥渋f you鈥檙e a good translator, maybe you shouldn鈥檛 even be noticed.鈥
鈥淭his is a creative process,鈥 she said. 鈥淭his is a definite collaborative work of art that we鈥檙e creating with our authors. I'm just endlessly grateful to the Booker for putting that out in front in this award."
