Georgi Gospodinov

By focusing on the communicative strategy of G. Gospodinov’s “Time Shelter”, the paper aims to identify some of the reasons for the success of the novel in a non-Bulgarian environment. The focus is also on the image of Bulgaria that “Time Shelter” builds; in relation to this image, the paper considers concepts such as “pamphlet” and “feuilleton” from a functional perspective.

The paper interprets the critical (and readers’) success of Georgi Gospodinov's novel “Time Selter”, linking it to the potential crisis of contemporary liberal consciousness. Richard Rorty's concept in his book “Chance, Irony, and Solidarity” (1989) is used as a theoretical approach to defining liberal cultural consciousness. The article analyses the asymmetry in the representation of private self-creation and the construction of collective forms of identity. The main focus is on the workings of memory and the different modes in which the past functions in the construction of private and collective identity.

In Albena Hranova’s “Statements on “Time Shelter” the thesis statements are rather questions to the flexible but vague ideography of Georgi Gospodinov's novel “Time Shelter”: the new status of personal history in the author's writing; the relationship between the material items and verbal stories; the transition from early-romantic to late-romantic characterology in Gaustin; the relationship between memory and the past in the modes of the individual and in the actions of societies; and the presence of “lyrical” arguments in the armature of this dystopia.

The text offers a departure from the dominant paradigm of critical interpretation of “Time Shelter”, related to the political and philosophical ideas in the novel and the author's strategy. Observations are directed at genre constructions and narrative structures that can be connected to G. Gospodinov's novel. Some of them, perceived as prestigious, are explicitly stated in the text of the work; others remain in the shadows.

Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov – Translations and Critical Response. Initial Bibliography