The past is a strange place… One often visits the place, spends some time there, and then comes back. This is termed Nostalgia. Sometimes, trauma prompts one not to visit the past. All these happen with those who are clinically healthy, can differentiate between the past and the present, and who are endowed with sharp memory functions.

However, there are some who fail to understand the now and the here, in spite of living in the present. Those, who are suffering from Dementia or Alzheimer’s, cannot get rid of the unbearable present. Dementia is the loss of cognitive functioning – thinking, remembering and reasoning – to such an extent that it interferes with a person’s daily life and activities. Some people with dementia cannot control their emotions, and their personalities may change. Alzheimer’s is a progressive disease, where dementia symptoms gradually worsen over a number of years. In its early stages, memory loss is mild, but with late-stage Alzheimer’s, individuals lose the ability to carry on a conversation and respond to their environment.

So far, no one has made gas masks or bomb shelters of the time (past). Hence, those, who are frustrated with the present, cannot take refuge in the near or distant past. Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov Georgiev has narrated the conditions of these people in his novel Time Shelter for which he received the 2023 International Booker Prize. The author shared the Prize with translator Angela Rodel. In this novel, Georgiev has mentioned about a four-storied mansion. Each of the floors of this mansion is one-of-a-kind, and represents a particular decade. While the ground floor represents the 1940s, the first floor represents the 1950s, the second floor the 1960s, and the third floor represents the 1970s. The 1980s and 1990s currently stay in an attic, and they would require more space in the near future. Gospodinov has revealed that his inspiration came from the rise of the Populism Movement in 2016, as well as Brexit, and that his writing was highly influenced by authors Thomas Mann and Jorge Luis Borges.

Bulgaria has attracted global attention after a long time due to Georgiev’s Time Shelter. In this novel, Gospodinov has played with popular tropes, like remembering, memory, past, etc. Gaustine, the main character of this novel, is a therapist by profession, having a specialisation in memory disorders, such as Alzheimer’s and Dementia. Described as a vagrant in time, Gaustine establishes a radical clinic of the past in Zurich, where those with such disorders can take refuge in the comfort of their memories. However, he soon realises that his idea has much broader potential!

The author, as well as the narrator, is like a flaneur whose only task is to monitor the time. Gaustine gradually establishes branches of his clinic in Bulgaria, Denmark and some other countries in Europe. At one point of time, governments of different countries urge him to build such a mansion in their countries, with an increasing number of people expressing desire to live in the past. Some people inform Gaustine that they want to live in a particular year forever. The therapist realises that countless clinically healthy people consciously want to live in the past, as they are fed up with the present. At this point, the novel becomes an epic, as well as a nightmare. It is because the past not only represents absolute hope, but also represents extreme fear. One should not consider the past as a place to heal old wounds, but also a place to get injured.

Time Shelter accepts and rejects Czech-French novelist Milan Kundera‘s eloquent quotes about memory, explains Gabriel García Márquez‘s concept of time through the politics of human history and bypasses Rushdie‘s facetiousness to reach violence as explained by José de Sousa Saramago, the Portuguese Nobel Prize winner in Literature in 1998. It is great to live in the 1960s or in 1986. However, it remains to be seen what would happen if someone chooses a time shelter in 1975, 1992 or 2002?

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Published by Koushik Das

Koushik Das (born on May 16, 1976 in Kolkata) is a career journalist. Based in the Indian capital of New Delhi, Koushik writes mainly about foreign policies and current geopolitical issues, and rarely about other topics. His own political ideas are highly influenced by Antonio Gramsci, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michael Oakeshott and others. English philosopher and political theorist Oakeshott (Dec 11, 1901-Dec 19, 1990) says that “in political activity, men sail a boundless and bottomless sea. There is neither harbour for shelter nor floor for anchorage, neither starting-place, nor appointed destination. But we have to keep afloat”. (Rationalism in Politics, 1962) As a student of Political Science, Koushik loves to share his views on issues, which have great impacts on his thought process (and also on India, South Asia and of course on the global community), with his readers through his website – Boundless Ocean of Politics. By doing so, he tries to keep himself afloat. You will find some of his articles in https://inserbia.info/today/ (https://inserbia.info/today/author/kou_das13_i/), as he has been trying to assess the global geopolitics since 2003. You can also mail him at kousdas@gmail.com View all posts by Koushik Das