First Bulgarian winner of International Booker Prize, Georgi Gospodinov, named Honorary Citizen of Sofia

Sofia Municipal Council voted to award the title of "Honorary Citizen of Sofia" to the first Bulgarian winner of the Booker Prize for Literature Georgi Gospodinov, Sofia Municipality press office announced on June 29.

‘Time Shelter’ by Georgi Gospodinov wins International Booker Prize

He is the most translated and most awarded Bulgarian writer outside Bulgaria. Poetry collections "Lapidarium" and "The Cherry Tree of a Nation" were the start of his career in literature. His debut novel "A Natural Novel", published in 23 languages, brought him international fame.

His novel “The Physics of Sorrow” (2012) won the Angelus Prize for Central European Literature (2019) and the Jan Michalski International Literary Prize (2016), awarded in Switzerland. The novel has been published in 18 languages, including French, English, German, Spanish, Italian, and Arabic. It has been written about in publications such as the New Yorker, Di Zeit, and Liberation. "Georgi Gospodinov's real quest in “The Physics of Sorrow” is to find a way to live with sadness," the New Yorker wrote in a major article about the novel. "A Devilish book… You must immediately read it...," exclaimed philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy in Liberation. According to Nobel laureate Olga Tokarchuk, this novel is an undisputed part of the modern European canon.

Gospodinov's novel "Time Shelter" was published in April 2020 at the peak of the pandemic and topped the charts for most popular books. It has been translated into English, German, French, Italian and other languages. Winner of the Italian Premio Strega Europeo 2021 literary prize and the Athens Grand Prize for Literature. One of the best books of the year according to The New Yorker, The Guardian, The Financial Times. He is the first Bulgarian writer to be nominated and win the most prestigious single book literary prize, The International Booker Prize 2023.

The municipal councillors also approved to award the "Honorary Badge of the Sofia Municipality" to the translator of the novel "Time Shelter", Angela Rodel. She is a professional translator of contemporary Bulgarian literature, university lecturer, specialist in educational exchange, musician and ethnomusicologist. Her translations into English of contemporary Bulgarian authors have won a number of prestigious international awards.

The Bulgarian literary works translated into English by Angela Rodel include: "Holy Light" by Georgi Tenev; "Thrown in Nature" by Milen Ruskov; "The Physics of Sorrow" by Georgi Gospodinov; "18% Grey" by Zahari Karabashliev; "Hunt for Wolves" by Ivaylo Petrov, etc.

The author of International Booker Prize winner, Georgi Gospodinov, to BNT: The most important thing is that you can talk about big things in a small language