Bulgarian author wins International Booker Prize

By Burak Bir

LONDON (AA) - Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov’s "Time Shelter," a novel about the dangerous appeal of nostalgia, won the 2023 International Booker Prize on Tuesday.

Translated by Angela Rodel, it has become the first book written in Bulgarian to win the prize.

French-Moroccan novelist Leila Slimani chaired the panel of judges announced the winning book at a ceremony at the Sky Garden in London.

She said the winning book is "brilliant novel, full of irony and melancholy."

"It is a profound work that deals with a very contemporary question: What happens to us when our memories disappear? Georgi Gospodinov succeeds marvelously in dealing with both individual and collective destinies, and it is this complex balance between the intimate and the universal that convinced and touched us," Slimani added.

The £50,000 ($62,100) prize, which is split equally between the author and translator, is awarded annually for a novel or short story collection in any language that has been translated into English and published in the UK or Ireland.