Clinic for the Past

Time Shelter 

by Georgi Gospodinov

Time Shelter introduces Gospodinov to American readers as a key figure in international literature.





Georgi Gospodinov's Time Shelter is a conceptually bold and satirical novel about the allure and danger of nostalgia. The winner of the 2023 International Booker Prize, the book follows an unnamed narrator and a mysterious figure named Gaustine, who opens a "clinic for the past." Initially designed to treat Alzheimer's patients by meticulously recreating specific decades of their youth, the clinics have grown in popularity to the point where healthy people are seeking refuge there, sparking a pan-European movement in which entire nations vote to live in a preferred decade of history.

The novel has a complex, fragmented, and philosophical structure. The author has a distinct voice and "Borgesian strangeness," and it is precisely the type of novel of ideas that I enjoy. Its reflections on memory and the "weaponization of nostalgia" are also intriguing. The second half, which details various European countries' previous referendums, can be "meandering," "diffuse," or "a bit of a slog."

While it is deeply compassionate, some of the "nebulous" characters and metafictional elements made me question the story. It took me a while to get into this book, but once I understood the structure, I was engrossed... [the book leaves] you wondering what is 'safer' for a person—a familiar past with its trauma, or an unfamiliar present."

Time Shelter is both thought-provoking and entertaining. While the novel stretches itself a little thin, the end result is one of the best books I've read this year.

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