In our last episode of the year (time flies!), we catch up with International Booker Prize 2023 winners Georgi Gospodinov and Angela Rodel. The winning novel, Time Shelter, follows an enigmatic therapist who runs a ‘clinic for the past’ that offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s sufferers. It was the first book from Bulgaria to win the International Booker – and, in fact, to be shortlisted – and its win has been received with much excitement both in Gospodinov’s home country and beyond. This week, we catch up with author and translator to find out how the award has changed their lives and what they’ve been up to since their win.

• The book, its plot and its themes
• What the night of their International Booker Prize win was like
• How their lives have changed since winning the prize
• What it means for translators to receive recognition alongside the writers they work with
• The importance of music in their work
• The unique working relationship between writers and translators
• Why Bulgarian literature deserves more recognition and which books to look out for

Transcripts of The Booker Prize Podcast are generated using both speech recognition software and human transcribers, and as a result, may contain errors.

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Toby Stephens:

And believe me, one day, very soon, the majority of people will start returning to the past of their own accord. They’ll start losing their memories willingly. The time is coming when more and more people will want to hide in the cave of the past, to turn back, and not for happy reasons, by the way. We need to be ready with the bomb shelter of the past. Call it the time shelter, if you will.

Jo Hamya:

Welcome to The Booker Prize Podcast with me, Jo Hamya.

James Walton:

And me James Walton.

Jo Hamya:

And this week we have an end of the year treat for you, an interview with 2023 International Booker Prize winners, Georgi Gospodinov and Angela Rodel, the author and translator respectively of the novel Time Shelter.

James Walton:

Which you just heard actor Toby Stephens reading from in the intro. But Jo, before we get to the interview, it’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas. How’s the party season going? Have you been living a riotous old time with your literary pals?

Jo Hamya:

No, I wish. I have been invited to one party that hasn’t happened yet, but I haven’t even managed to get my decorations up. I’ve bought them, but they’re just lying in a box under my desk but I have already … I did in the very final week of November, serendipitously hear Mariah Carey’s All I Want For Christmas Is You, so that’s how I know that the Christmas season has begun. But we should move on to our interview with Georgi and Angela.

James Walton:

But before we get to the interview, Jo, why don’t you tell us what Time Shelter is all about?

Jo Hamya:

Yeah, it’s around this conceit of an Alzheimer’s clinic, which essentially offers to restore memory by taking patients back to the point in life at which they were youngest, healthiest and more likely to recover all their faculties.

James Walton:

So for example, they’ve got a floor for the ’60s, a floor for the ’50s, and rather melancholy a way, they’ve got to get ready for the ’80s and ’90s for when people like that are coming through. So at that point-

Jo Hamya:

It’s all quite nice.

James Walton:

… yes, it’s all quite nice. And then it becomes not so nice because?

Jo Hamya:

Because I suppose, various countries catch hold of this concept and politicise it to no end. So, they begin appropriating these memory rooms as a way to go back to the best decade of their era. And it all culminates in this, it reads … I don’t want to say this is a bad thing, it’s farcical, but not in a bad way. Series of referendums in Europe on which decade the country should go back to live in.

James Walton:

Yeah, that’s right. And it goes through one by one. Tragically, Britain’s not allowed to join in because we’re not in the EU anymore.

Jo Hamya:

Shameful. But it is really fascinating. There’s this sense of, I guess, suspense that the narrator goes through over and speculation over which decade each country will choose. In the end, a lot of countries do seem to plump for the ’80s, don’t they?

James Walton:

And particularly in … Well, Eastern Europe is very late ’80s after communism, but before the disappointment sets in. But no, it is true for a lot of the countries, it’s the ’80s. And I think this allows the book to make the point of the dangers of nostalgia, the weaponization of nostalgia. I think personally, going back to the past is perfectly pleasurable and lovely, if bittersweet and a bit pangy, but for an entire country to do it, that’s where the trouble begins. We’ve obviously seen that in all sorts of countries around the world in the last few years, and obviously, there’s a focus on Bulgaria. So, at one point the narrator goes back when the two factions in the referendum are deciding which they want. So there’s one called the Soc.

Jo Hamya:

Soc movement.

James Walton:

Soc movement I think, which is the socialists who want to go back to communism, not its most terrible. I think probably ’70s, ’80s, not the bit where all the intellectuals were being slaughtered after the war. And they reproduce it exactly, even down to the cracked nature of the loudhalers and how slightly inefficient it is. Meanwhile, there’s also slightly breaking the referendum conditions, isn’t it, because it meant to be the 20th century, but the bit where Bulgaria became independent of the Ottoman Empire in the 1880s and so, there’s those … people start wearing national clothes and stuff on buses and everything, but the narrator finds when he goes back, there’s these two factions fighting against each other.

Jo Hamya:

Yeah, it is slightly terrifying. I mean, I think there’s a point in the book in Sarajevo where there’s a reenactment of Franz Ferdinand going round in a motor car and there’s this narration that’s like, “Well, obviously he’s not going to get shot, it’s fine. We all know what happened after that, so no one’s going to be stupid enough.” And then guess what? So it really is, I think when we come onto the interview with Georgi, he makes the point that personal memory can’t be altered or relived or undone, but historical memory and events definitely can, and I think the novel is really good towards the end on picking up on that point.

James Walton:

I think we’ve summarised that pretty well Jo, if we may pat ourselves on the back, but I wouldn’t want people listening to not realise, it explores memory from almost every possible angle, doesn’t it?

Jo Hamya:

Yes.

James Walton:

The good things, the bad things, whether it’s best to remember. And there’s some just stories that are great in themselves. There’s one guy who’s completely forgotten what happened to him, and they bring in basically the secret policemen who used to follow him around in Bulgaria, who tells him exactly what he did during those years.

Jo Hamya:

The other thing I actually really enjoyed about it is I think if you just went through it and ticked off all the cultural references in it, all the music, all the film, all the historical landmarks, you would end up with this really amazing catalogue of just … I don’t know, I don’t know how you’d put it, European cultural artefacts, just like a really great guidebook to-

James Walton:

Absolutely, absolutely.

Jo Hamya:

… you could make a syllabus out of it, out of Time Shelter and study each art piece or-

James Walton:

No, obviously I’m very pleased about the complete centrality of the Beatles for the entire history of Europe in the 20th century. Outdone only by the Second World War, which still remains I think the thing to which everything leads and from which everything leads.

Jo Hamya:

And that’s Time Shelter. So with all that being said, let’s move on to the interview.

James Walton:

So, welcome Georgi and Angela, delighted to have you with us. You are joining us from Sofia?

Angela Rodel:

Yes, we’re in Sofia, Bulgaria.

James Walton:

Time Shelter was the first novel translated from the Bulgarian to win the International Booker, in fact, the first to be shortlisted. Georgi, you’ve won a lot of prizes, but did this one feel different in any way?

Georgi Gospodinov:

Yes, yes, of course, yeah. First of all, it was a big pure joy here in Bulgaria, but not only in Bulgaria, also in the Balkan countries. I was a week ago in Zagreb and they told me here in Zagreb, we felt like a Croatian writer won the Booker Prize. So, this is very important for all the countries or the writers from our part of the world, because sometimes I think we have this feeling that our stories are not very often in front of the European, Western European, the world reader, on the stage. And that’s why this work was important.

Also, it happened just before the 24th of May. It’s our national holiday, which was … it’s a holiday dedicated to alphabet. We adopted Slavic, Cyrillic alphabet, and this was very important sign. And yeah, the society was united because of the joy of this award.

James Walton:

So, how did it work? Was it live-streamed to Bulgaria?

Angela Rodel:

Yeah, yeah, a lot of friends and supporters were watching and apparently there was a lot of screaming and yelling here in Sofia when the announcement was made because really it was the evening of May 23rd, but Bulgaria’s two hours ahead, so they announced right around 10 o’clock, which is right around the stroke of midnight here on the eve of the Bulgarian Alphabet Day. So, it was really a special moment for everyone here.

Jo Hamya:

But I heard the two of you afterwards wanted to celebrate. You were in Kensington after the ceremony and unfortunately, not much partying in Kensington.

Angela Rodel:

Nope, nope. Too bad we weren’t here in Sofia. We ended up going to a convenience store and getting a bottle of prosecco and sitting in the hotel with Georgi’s wife and daughter, and it brought us all back to our student years.

Jo Hamya:

Oh my God, that’s so lovely in its way as well though, it sounds really intimate, but I’d also love to know Angela, it’s also a huge win for a translator. How has it changed your life? Is there a translation community and do you speculate about the International Booker the way that writers do?

Angela Rodel:

I think that maybe translators, we’re used to being invisible, so I didn’t even dare think about the Booker International. I’ve known other translators who’ve wanted … but that always just seems like a dream, something that’s impossible. And it’s interesting, because there is a community of translators, but because I don’t live in the US, I don’t see my colleagues in the US. Of course, online we communicate with Alta and some other groups, but here in Bulgaria we have a community of translators, all of us translating into different languages. So, last night we were just at a party and I ran into Georgi’s Danish translator, his Dutch translator. So actually, there are different translation communities, but I think most of us are probably too humble to dare to dream about something like the Booker. So, it was just an absolute dream come true.

James Walton:

And how did you two meet, actually? Let’s go back to the beginning

Angela Rodel:

Actually. My ex-husband is also a writer and he’s a poet, and Georgi was the editor of his first poetic book. And it was funny, I remember Georgi was already a legend when I was here in Bulgaria and a bunch of young writers were doing this interesting thing called [foreign language 00:10:59], where we’d stand out in the middle of public parks with an old amplifier and read poetry at people walking by whether or not they wanted it. And I remember one day everybody’s like, “Georgi’s going to come, Georgi’s going to come.” And he showed up and I think that was the first time I ever actually met Georgi in person, was probably 20 years ago at this outdoor flash poetry reading.

Jo Hamya:

Actually, something that I found really fascinating is the fact that you’re both musically inclined. Georgi, you write operas and Angela, you’re in a folk band. Do you ever overlap in that sense?

Angela Rodel:

Yeah, no, I think Georgi, one of the things I really like about his writing is that there’s … music plays such a role as, as we saw on Time Shelter, you could make a couple albums out of just all the music that’s referenced in the book. And for me, I came to Bulgaria because I wanted to study Bulgarian folk music. So, of course for me, I think it’s not, for instance, people that love poetry, that love language, there is a sonic element to it, there’s a rhythm, there’s a prosody. And I think maybe both of us, our musical inclinations come out on the page in that respect. I don’t know, Georgi?

Georgi Gospodinov:

Yes, actually they asked me from book or committee to make something like playlist of the novel and I made this playlist with 12 very important song and piece of songs. Music is very important because it’s connected with the Alzheimer and dementia and the novel is about this. The musical structures, they unlocked memory in a way and also they stay to the last moments in our memory, the last thing that will disappear, this is some piece of music. So, that’s why it was very important for the novel.

But also, when I write, I like to start with the music and you can find many, of course, many Beatles songs, but also Sarabanda by Handel, but also this very old song by Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht, Alabama Song, that we know because of [inaudible 00:13:19]. So, all of these pieces are very important for the novel.

James Walton:

Can we just ask a bit about how the actual collaboration between you works? Georgi, do you write the book and then give it to Angela? She presents you with English translation or is it more collaborative all along the way than that?

Georgi Gospodinov:

Yes, with Angela, this is the second novel that we worked together with Angela. The previous one was the Physics Of Sorrow. And now because we are living in the same city in Sofia, so it’s very easy to communicate, to have coffee, to talk about these translations issues. And I really like when I have talk with translators, I’m always suspicious to the translators that never ask you.

Jo Hamya:

I would love to know Angela, exactly how translating from a Slavic language to an English language?

Angela Rodel:

Yeah, Bulgarian is maybe odd in terms of Slavic languages and it doesn’t have cases. So, everyone who’s suffered with Russian and Polish and all the other languages are lots of cases. And in one sense, it’s a little easier in Bulgarian, but the verbal system is by far the hardest. I think I teach translation and that’s one of the things I find my students struggling with, but just the sounding is very different.

Slavic languages have lots of consonants, a lot of … Bulgarian is unusual in that it has a post-positional article. The comes at the end of the word and it’s like [foreign language 00:14:52], so you get this kind of like … almost like a machine gun kind of rata-ta-ta type sound in Bulgarian, which is really difficult to emulate. In his previous book, Physics Of Sorrow, he played with that and it was very difficult to figure out how to bring a little bit of that … into the English sounding.

James Walton:

Do you ever think when he does something like that, “Oh, for God’s sake. Make my life a bit easier.”

Angela Rodel:

Yes. Yeah, I think so. We lovingly complain, all of Georgi’s translators, we all know each other, many of us. And we said, “Oh, what did you do about that? Oh, that was really nasty on his part, wasn’t it?”

Georgi Gospodinov:

So, complaining is not something typical only for Bulgarian, but also for the translators.

James Walton:

Actually, could you just lower the tone slightly Angela, with just one question struck me, which is there’s one bit in the book where … talking about what time takes off people and, “This robber, life or time, comes and takes everything, your memory, your heart, your hearing, your pecker.” Now presumably, there’s quite a lot of words for penis in Bulgarian. There’s certainly a lot of words for penis in English, with different degrees of comedy and rudeness and do you have to match that sort of thing up?

Angela Rodel:

It’s so funny you would ask, a friend of mine about two weeks ago just asked me exact same question, “Why pecker?” And the word in Bulgarian, in Bulgarian also has a range of possible words-

James Walton:

I imagine.

Angela Rodel:

… this noun and needed something that was funny, light, it’s not particularly vulgar. [foreign language 00:16:30]. And also it had the P, with the sounding worked as well. So, I didn’t want something that was very vulgar or too medical and I thought that was a little bit light-hearted. It also had the right sounding in the phrase has this series of things that you lose, that has a rhythm. And so, I think there were a number of considerations that went into choosing pecker.

James Walton:

We’re obviously quite proud of pecker in the end. And just actually, one other just question, the fact that we … We’ll get onto the novel much more closely in a minute, but there’s a memory clinic that’s surrounded by flowers that are forget-me-nots, which is obviously a lovely touch. Is that the same phrase in Bulgarian then?

Angela Rodel:

Yes. Luckily, I don’t know what my colleagues who are in languages where it’s named something different, but I lucked out completely [foreign language 00:17:19], that it’s basically don’t forget in Bulgarian. So, I lucked out.

Jo Hamya:

Well, maybe we can shift more over to the idea of Bulgarian literature generally, because there was a great inaugural sense Georgi, when you won the prize. Do you feel like Bulgarian literature up to this point has been given its due or have we all been missing something?

Georgi Gospodinov:

I hope it will come. I hope that this award, and I think it always happens, already happened, will open slide the door to Bulgarian literature and not only to the contemporary literature, but of course on it as well, but also to the literature from 20th century that we missed in the time. So now, more publishers asked me and Angela about new voices, about Bulgarian writers, and now we expect two books to be published soon from Bulgarian writers from the mid-twentieth century. So, I think yes, it works and not only for Bulgarian literature, as I mentioned, but also for the literature in the region from the Eastern, so-called Eastern European literature, or Central European literature because I think we have strong voices. Actually, we are very close to Ukraine, to the places where war has happened now. And this is important. And also, we have this experience, we had this experience. We used to live in the times that were part of the Soviet Union domination. And so, we have some stories to tell.

Jo Hamya:

Which 20th century novels would you recommend? Which would you like to see translated?

Angela Rodel:

Well actually, have a new translation coming out in January of 2024. It’s by Vera Mutafchieva, it’s called The Case Of Cem. And she was a Bulgarian writer who is also an Ottoman historian, which is really interesting because Bulgarians have a fraught relationship to the Ottoman past here. They’re part of the Ottoman Empire for 500 years, but have a difficult relationship with that part of history. And so, she as a Bulgarian writing, about internecine war in the Ottoman royal house, it’s a really interesting book and it’s actually … it’s an analogy of the Cold War, it’s very … I’d say, has a lot to say about what’s going on in Ukraine now. It’s a really interesting book. Considering it was published in the 1960s, it has very, very contemporary messages.

Georgi Gospodinov:

And also we have this Georgi Markov who was emigrant, a dissident writer actually who was connected with London.

James Walton:

Was killed in London, in fact.

Angela Rodel:

Yeah, the umbrella murder.

Georgi Gospodinov:

The Bulgarian umbrella, yeah. And so, we will have soon his novellas in English. Also we met her widow in London and she was very, very … what to say? It was very movement meeting between us because she told me Georgi would be very happy if he was alive and to see what happened.

James Walton:

Just on the Bulgarian thing. I remember a while in the ’80s, Eastern European writers did become quite hot in the West, but it was mainly Czechs and led by Milan Kundra, but others too. And then Philip Roth brought out this Writers From The Other Europe series, 17 books. Featured mainly Czechs and Poles with a couple of Hungarians and won Yugoslav, but no Bulgarians. Did you feel left out basically, I suppose?

Georgi Gospodinov:

Yeah. Actually, thank you for this question. I didn’t know this [inaudible 00:21:06] but I could imagine some explanations. You see, he managed to find books by Czechs, Poland, Hungarian mainly, and this were the countries that were politically active in this period. They had this Czechs, of course, Prague’s events, or Hungarian events. In Bulgaria, we had a strong tradition of short stories, storytelling and poetry, and maybe people were looking for novels, more or less. So, there are many, many reasons. But this is very interesting to think about why Bulgarian literature in this period didn’t happen.

Angela Rodel:

Yeah, no, I think it’s true. It’s interesting, Bulgaria, I think up until World War II was like 80% rural, so it didn’t really have the deep roots of an urban intelligentsia, where somewhere like Prague or the Hungary would have. And then after 1944, the Red Army, they basically was a purge of all the intellectuals that were killed or they fled. And so, Bulgaria didn’t have the same kind of dissident literature. I mean there were some of course, dissident writers, but it wasn’t a strong movement just because they didn’t have this base of urban intellectuals or the ones that had lived there had fled. And so, it was funny, I remember being at a reading, maybe 20 years ago, somebody had come from, I think it was somewhere else, and they had said something about Bulgaria’s dissident literature and it was dead silence in the room and somebody yelled out, “This isn’t Prague.” Just there are social and historical reasons that these same sorts of movements were a little bit later coming to Bulgaria.

James Walton:

Wow. When he meets a fellow Bulgarian early in the book in Time Shelter, there’s a funny but slightly sad passage where the narrator, you referred to this before I think, says, “They talked about the eternal sorrow and misfortune of being Bulgarian. A topic ripe for filling any awkward lull in the conversation for a Bulgarian complaining is talking about the weather in England, you can never go wrong.” Presumably that’s true, is it?

Georgi Gospodinov:

Yeah. Actually, never ask Bulgarian the question, how are you? It’s not just an innocent [inaudible 00:23:20]. You will receive the full scale answer about what’s wrong, what’s happened, and so on. But this is the topic of my previous novel, The Physics Of Sorrow. Seriously speaking, we have this culture of suffering, or culture of sorrow, let’s say. And this is a serious question. Of course, we have historical reasons. We have this feeling that we are always out of the places where things happens. So many, many, many things are connected with this complaining. And actually, once we were champions of sorrow, we were the saddest place in the world, as we were called by economists, I think.

James Walton:

I didn’t realise it was official.

Georgi Gospodinov:

No, we never been champions of some collective game. We were even pretty happy that we’re champions in something, even if it’s sorrow.

James Walton:

So, that and the International Booker, okay.

Jo Hamya:

We’ll hear more from Georgi Gospodinov and Angela Rodel after this short break. Welcome back to our interview with Georgi Gospodinov and Angela Rodel.

James Walton:

For people in the West, obviously the past is vanished, but if you grow up under communism, it’s even more vanished in a way, isn’t it? Because there’s an entire system, a whole philosophical underpinning of the way everything was, or way of living that’s just gone. Does that make the past particularly strange and remembering it particularly hard, do you think?

Georgi Gospodinov:

It’s very interesting question because I’ve worked on the last decade, or the previous decade, with this memory about communism. We made the inventory book of communism, inventory book of socialism, and we gathered small, everyday things. And I also thought that the past is vanished, this part of the past. But when you cross the small villages or the small towns in Bulgaria, especially, you will see how actually, part of this past is still there. Part of this furniture is still there, part of this objects are there. And it because of poverty, of course. Poverty keeps the past alive, in a way. And so, sometime, it’s very strange that we had a strong nostalgia to this kind of the past.

And in my novel, I wanted to narrate about this nostalgia to the socialist times because populists now and politicians, they use this nostalgia, of course. They promise again this past, like a future. When I was young, they promised us, usually they promised us future, they paid us with this check of the futures. Now they promise us the past, but we know it. We know it in a good way.

So, this is one strange things. Another is that if you travel in Sofia, if you take a cab, a taxi, and you want to stop in the downtown in the centre, if you say, “Took me to the mausoleum,” mausoleum of Georgi Dimitrov was destroyed maybe 20 years ago.

Angela Rodel:

In 1996, yeah.

Georgi Gospodinov:

Even more. It doesn’t exist. It was mausoleum with a mummified body of Georgi Dimitrov, now a communist leader then. But the people still remember this place and they know this place. You can feel the shadow of this place there. So, it is very interesting with the times, they’re not really passed into the past.

James Walton:

Angela, that must be a thing in America too. I mean, part of the book is about the urge to … essentially the current politics has this nostalgic urge and famously in America, it would be make American great again. But when was it great the first time? That’s very much a question of choosing your decade, isn’t it? As in the book, people are asked, every country’s given a chance-

Angela Rodel:

Yeah, it depends very much on who you ask. But certain racial groups, certain women, many people will answer that question very differently depending on what their identity is. So yeah, I think those are questions that every society asks itself. And that’s what I think is so genius about Georgi’s book is that he, in a ironic and maybe that farcical way, goes through a number of different countries and how do they pick and when do they pick, but it really makes you think. And I thought about it, I’m like, “What would America … I fear to ask what Americans would pick, which decade.

James Walton:

What would be your best guess, actually? If you had to do what Georgi did with America, what do you think the … So, as I say, there’s these referenda, where people choose which decade they want their country to return to. What would America go for, do you think?

Angela Rodel:

I think a lot of Americans, depending on the generation, would probably go for the 1950s because that was after the war. And then this big economic boom is when America became the world’s superpower. But the fact of the matter is, it was before civil rights. I mean, there are many reasons not to pick it, but I think a lot of Americans have a sense of nostalgia for that time. Things weren’t quote unquote as complicated. The sexual revolution hadn’t happened yet, but I personally wouldn’t want to see America go back there. But I can see that many of my country people might feel differently.

Georgi Gospodinov:

In Bulgaria, in the novel, we have two periods, one of this nationalistic periods of the … what to say, Bulgarian revival movement from 19th century. And another one is this late communism, this nostalgia to the late communism. The nostalgia of these times, it’s not … maybe not any more the nostalgia, I hope, to the communist ideology, but this is a kind of conservative … it became a conservative nostalgia to this previous decade.

Jo Hamya:

But in the book, there’s a point where you write … The narrator says, “There were two Bulgarias and neither of them was mine.” So, is this how you feel?

Georgi Gospodinov:

I think, I hope, that there is a third one, actually, that is mine. The third one, yeah. Because if the two Bulgarians are one nationalistic Bulgarian with the kitsch of nationalism, the other one is with nostalgia to socialism, to the old times. I think that there is a smaller one with young, pro-European people, democratic people, people who really feel like a part of the world. I believe in this kind of Bulgaria.

James Walton:

Now, the book is a thorough debate about the pros and cons of remembering, what’s good about remembering and what’s dangerous about remembering and going back to the past. Did you eventually, again, quite a big question this, but did you eventually come down on one side or the other, whether it’s better to on the whole remember or to forget?

Georgi Gospodinov:

This is the main question of the book, of course, because working with the memory, every day working with the memory is important, I think. Everyday work, this is important phrase because what happened now, we are 70 year later from the Second World War and we have another war. So, for 70 years, for seven decades after Second World War, because of I think of our stories, of our thinking and all the reflections on the war, we managed to have seven decade peace. So, that’s the work of the memory. Memory keep the past into the past.

I think that now we are living in a special period, in a kind of social amnesia dimension and Alzheimer, collective Alzheimer, we started to lose our memory for the past. And that’s why the past comes easily now because the memory … it’s important to have strong memory because to keep the past into the past. And so, that’s why it’s important. But the question is what kind of memory you should develop?

I think it must be, what to say, liberated memory. Could I say this? Yeah. Because they are also some dealers of the past, dealers of the memory for the past, like populist. And they tell us dimensional, invented-

Angela Rodel:

Sanitised, yeah.

Georgi Gospodinov:

… yeah, fake memory for the past. So, this is also important what kind of memory. Be careful what kind of memory they sell.

James Walton:

Yes. So, in a way, nostalgia is almost the opposite of proper memory, in a way. Is that what you’re saying?

Georgi Gospodinov:

The nostalgia is a normal human feeling. We should admit this. When you like to live in your own path, it’s a personal feeling, personal thing. And then it could be a bit innocent when you have a nostalgia to, I don’t know, to the days when you were young, or student, or something like this. But nostalgia became dangerous, become a weapon, when someone tried to sell you collective path. When you try to put you in a collective nostalgia to some epoch or part of the history, and this could be dangerous in a way because nostalgia is like glasses that are not on the right size. You put them and you see the world in a different way, not in the real world.

James Walton:

Obviously, part of the book is about growing up, seeing the West as a sort of mysterious other thing, but very beguiling, very attractive in some way. Again, this is a big question. What did the West mean to people growing up in Eastern Europe? And was that romanticised too, as it turned out?

Georgi Gospodinov:

Actually, we knew that we were far away, that the other world was existed, is existed. We knew this and we knew that we are not there, that this world is denied to us. And it was very traumatic knowledge, actually. So, Western world was some place that we knew that we never will be there, we will not be part of this, or we didn’t believe. We stopped to believe that we will be there, but we invented this place. We dreamed about this place. We had our dreams about him. And my father and mother, they never travelled abroad, I mean, in Paris, or London, or Rome, but they had their imaginary Paris, London and Rome.

And when I travel now because of my books, and I always call them and say, “Mom, I’m here in Paris on Champs-Elysees.” And they say, “Okay, so it must be great and this and this.” I say, “Okay, it’s not bad.” And I realised that they have their Paris, Rome and London still stay more beautiful than mine. They still make this miracle of invention. They still keep this picture because during the communist time we were … of course, the world was denied, but we tried to find a way to read about this world, to watch the movies, to invent them.

Do you know which was more prestigious job in the time of socialism? You’ll never guess. It was to be a international truck driver, international truck driver, because you can travel abroad. Abroad for us was like a different country, like a separate country, where you can buy long chew gums, like cigarettes, or you can buy all these everyday goods, like whiskey, chocolates and so on and so on. And after that, to keep the empty packages of this, they also were very … this could be funny, but also it could be, if you analyse this, it could be very traumatic in a way. Anyway, so this international truck driver, they were allowed to travel abroad and they brought to us back some records, some albums, some videotapes, some audio, audiotapes, and this was important, yeah.

Jo Hamya:

Can I flip it, actually? Angela, can I ask you about your experience of going from West to East?

James Walton:

Well, can I just add in why of all the countries in all the world, did you choose Bulgaria?

Angela Rodel:

Because of the music, actually Bulgarian music, if you don’t know, it’s the best music in the world, though I’m clearly biassed, but it really is completely unique and unbelievable. They have a very interesting folk singing tradition, women’s folk singing tradition. And I was thinking when Georgi was talking about the history, basically Bulgaria was very rural up until the 1940s. And so they kept their folk tradition quite alive compared to Western Europe. And then when the communists came in, they made everybody move into cities to work in factories. But they saved the music, in the sense that they put it on stage and they made it in these state ensembles and they made this art music like Western … They put Western five, six, seven part harmonies to this folk music.

And it actually, to me, is one of the most beautiful musics in the world. This really interesting combination of Bulgaria’s folk tradition, then Western avant-garde, art music. And so, I came to study the music. I came to study to study singing. And you can’t sing if you don’t know the words, right? So, I had to learn Bulgarian as well.

James Walton:

How did you come across the music?

Georgi Gospodinov:

In a way, actually we imported Western music in Bulgaria illegally, to distract drivers or so on, but exported our Bulgarian music [inaudible 00:38:57].

Angela Rodel:

Exactly, yeah, yes. Yeah, no, actually I was an undergrad at Yale in the early 1990s, and I was studying Russian, actually Russian literature, Russian language, but I always had been a singer and they had the Yale Slavic Chorus. And I was like, “Oh, perfect. It’s like Russian, but music.” And I went and I heard that they played some Bulgarian music and I was like, “What is that? I want my voice to sound like that.” And so, I eventually … nobody taught Bulgarian at Yale even then but I gradually … I mean, I like Russian literature to this day, but I refocused on the Balkans and on Southern Slavic and then got a grant after I graduated to come here and study music.

James Walton:

I think I interrupted Jo’s main question there, which was your experience of the East? Sorry.

Jo Hamya:

Oh, yes.

Angela Rodel:

Yeah, no, and then I first came to Bulgaria in 1995, so it was after the fall of communism. But Bulgaria had a really difficult transition. It wasn’t like Prague, where there was lustration, or like Romania where they killed Ceausescu. Here, it was an internal coup, where basically the Bulgarian Communist Party deposed the dictator and the mafia, basically the old secret service, became the mafia. And so, there wasn’t a sense of a big break with the past. It was just sort of like a re-wallpapering of the past. But a lot of the people who had been in power remained in power, and a lot of the everyday people were suffering greatly. There was a number of economic crises, many people emigrated. It was a really hard time.

And so, in the 1990s in Bulgaria, there was euphoria about the freedom, but there was also a lot of frustration like, “We’re supposed to be free now we’re supposed to be western capitalists and we’re all poor. We can’t afford to do anything.” And was a really interesting time to be here. Everything was so grey. I mean, I remember as a musician, I would want to make recordings and I had to bring a suitcase full of AA batteries. You couldn’t even get something as simple as AA batteries. I mean, that’s not the case now, but it was a really tough time. I think it was a very difficult time for Bulgaria, and a time when a lot of people felt very disillusioned by the West and by capitalism because of the way the transition just left the same people in power. And the people that have been wealthy before were now even that much more wealthy. So, it was an interesting time to be here, for sure.

James Walton:

Has it settled down since?

Angela Rodel:

Yeah, no, definitely. I think Bulgarians like to complain and they’re like, “Oh, it’s … ” but I think there’s no comparison, it’s so much … the standard of living has gotten so much better. It’s a part of the European Union, it’s a member of NATO. But that said, we’re still facing a lot of problems with corruption, a lot of problems with rule of law, a lot of … I understand when Bulgarians continue to be frustrated and to voice this sort of disillusionment because it was a very difficult transition. But that said, there’s no comparing to 25 years ago.

James Walton:

Georgi, I’ve got one question for you. We’ve concentrated more on the political side of memory in the book, but it does start as a solution to the growing problem of Alzheimer’s. And throughout the book, you remind us how massive and growing a problem this is, and at one point you worry that, or the narrator worries, that at some point governments are going to think that why are we spending all this money on these useless people. And what can be done, what should be done?

Georgi Gospodinov:

I hope people will not ask this question why we should spend money about this people. Because one of the first thing in ’30s, when Hitler came in power, was to start this company? Campaign?

Angela Rodel:

Campaign like eugenics, yeah.

Georgi Gospodinov:

Campaign, yeah, to kill the people who are disabled, or especially the people who have some mental problems, who get dementia. So this is a very dangerous … very important question and could be very dangerous. So, now it became a real problem, I think because the society get older and older, people are living more and more. So, it’s normal to have after 80, to have these problems with dementia and Alzheimer’s. Actually now, we have more than 15 million people who are suffering from Alzheimer and dementia. And every three seconds we have new patients who are suffering dementia and Alzheimer. So, it will be a big problem in the close future, also for the families. It’s not a problem about the patient only, it’s a problem about the families, the people who should take care. The problem is real, and that’s why part of the novel is dedicated on this. Because losing your memory, you’re losing your identity, actually.

Jo Hamya:

I’d love to know how winning the International Booker Prize has changed your life this year?

Angela Rodel:

No, I mean, it’s been amazing. I still feel like when I wake up and it’ll all have been a dream. But no, it’s been phenomenal, just the level of recognition. I think as translators, we’re … Traditionally we’ve been invisible. It’s only been in the last maybe five years that it’s become common for translators’ names to show up on the cover. So, it’s just such an incredible honour to get this level of recognition. And it’s really lovely here in Sofia this morning, an elderly lady on the metro said, “Are you the famous translator?” And I thought, “Isn’t that an oxymoron?” It was so nice that she said, “Thank you. My family and I are big fans of your work.”

So, I mean, it really has been lovely. I think most of times, you’re a good translator, nobody should know you’re even there. They should be reading the book and feeling like they’re talking to Georgi. And so, it’s been really nice to have that recognition.

Georgi Gospodinov:

Yeah, also the best thing is that some ordinary people who are far away from literature, they feel happy because of this award. They are encouraged, they … Also a guard of a parking stop me and say me, “You know, we also read books,” Told this to me. “We working something else, but we’re reading books.” Also this, I think, I feel this, this award is encouraging for the young writers and translators. Now they know, and for me this is very important, that if you write on a small language, you have chance and you should tell stories about the big things, about the big issues. You no need to be [inaudible 00:45:54] to be put in some-

Angela Rodel:

[inaudible 00:45:55], yeah.

Georgi Gospodinov:

… what to say box. Like, “Okay, you are from Bulgaria. What we are waiting from you to tell stories about the Ottoman Empire, or the fighting, or something like this or some exotic things?” No, you have right, and you should use this right to tell whatever you want, to tell about everything. Because we have lot to tell. And this is very important, what to say, what happened after the award.

Jo Hamya:

This has been my favourite interview. I’ve really loved listening to you both, it’s been wonderful.

Angela Rodel:

Well, thank you so much.

Georgi Gospodinov:

Thank you.

James Walton:

No, thank you very much. Yeah, goodbye.

Angela Rodel:

And you, take care. Have a lovely day.

James Walton:

That’s it for this week and indeed for this year, as we now take a Christmas break for two weeks.

Jo Hamya:

But there is a wealth of Booker Prize content you can still mine at thebookerprizes.com, including more

on Time Shelter, this year’s International Booker Prize winner.

James Walton:

Also, if you find yourself missing The Booker Prize Podcast over the festive period, which I imagine you will, there are 27 previous episodes. So, if you unaccountably missed one or two of those, then why not listen to them too?

Jo Hamya:

Do you have any particular recommendations, James?

James Walton:

Well, I must say the one that I was most reluctant about, and let’s be honest Jo, you made me do, was Booker Love Island, which I thoroughly enjoyed.

Jo Hamya:

Yeah, of course you did. You should listen to me more often, James.

James Walton:

What about you? Any favourites of yours?

Jo Hamya:

Sentimentally, I think the first episode. Also, because I think in all honesty, it was less put together than we are now. But I think the great thing about that one is that you can hear us both thinking about the books in real time and also about each other, in a way.

James Walton:

Yeah, no, getting to know each other, I like that. We brought along our favourite Booker books, and I went for Butcher Boy by Patrick McCabe and Jo?

Jo Hamya:

I did, No One Is Talking About This by Patricia Lockwood, but I am also, less sentimentally and more in terms of it’s just a really good listen, a huge fan of our two episode special on this year’s shortlist, because I just think we covered those books really well, James.

James Walton:

So do I, and proved our independence as well, I think is the euphemistic way of saying we’ve slagged off a couple of them but anyway …

Jo Hamya:

Yes, you can follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Substack @TheBookerPrizes. We’ll be back on Thursday, the 4th of January with a special preview of the big books to look out for in 2024.

James Walton:

So until then, it’s a very, very Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year from both of us.

Jo Hamya:

Happy holidays, bye.

James Walton:

Bye. The Booker Prize Podcast is hosted by Jo Hamya and me, James Walton. It’s produced and edited by Kevin Muyolo and the executive producer is Jon Davenport. It’s a Daddy’s Super Yacht production for the Booker Prizes.