Six Degrees of Separation ~ From Time Shelter to Primeval and Other Times

 

#6Degrees of Separation:
from Time Shelter to Primeval and Other Times

#6Degrees is a monthly link-up hosted by Kate at Books Are My Favourite and Best. I love the idea. Thank you, Kate. See more about this challenge, its history, further books and how I found this here.

This month's prompt starts with Time Shelter by Georgi Gospodinov (Goodreads).

As usual, I have not read this book but it does sound interesting, so I've put it on my wishlist.

Here is the description of the book:

"In Time Shelter, an enigmatic flâneur named Gaustine opens a ‘clinic for the past’ that offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer’s sufferers: each floor reproduces a decade in minute detail, transporting patients back in time.

As Gaustine’s assistant, the unnamed narrator is tasked with collecting the flotsam and jetsam of the past, from 1960s furniture and 1940s shirt buttons to scents and even afternoon light. But as the rooms become more convincing, an increasing number of healthy people seek out the clinic as a ‘time shelter’, hoping to escape from the horrors of our present - a development that results in an unexpected conundrum when the past begins to invade the present.

Intricately crafted, and eloquently translated by Angela Rodel, Time Shelter cements Georgi Gospodinov’s reputation as one of the indispensable writers of our times, a major voice in international literature."

Unfortunately, I have not read many books from Bulgaria although I visited it years before the Iron Curtain fell. I definitely must change that.

But, this book received the international booker prize and I have read a few of them. The first ones were awarded for the whole body of work, and I have not really read any of the books for which the authors received the award later. So I chose my favourite books on the list by the different writers, all by different authors.
All of them received various other prizes and I have added the best known ones.

Ismail Kadare, Albania, 2005

Man Booker International Prize 2005, Order of Legion of Honor 2016
Kadaré, Ismail "The Pyramid" (AL: Piramida) - 1992

Chinua Achebe, Nigeria, 2007
Commonwealth Poetry Prize 1972, Nigerian National Order of Merit, Peace Prize of the German Book Trade 2002
Achebe, Chinua "Things Fall Apart" (The African Trilogy #1) - 1958

Alice Munro, Canada, 2009
Governor General's Award 1968, 1978, 1986, Man Booker International Prize 2009, Nobel Prize in Literature 2013
Munro, Alice "Runaway" - 2004 (short stories)

Philip Roth, USA, 2011
PEN/Faulkner Award 1994, Pulitzer Prize 1998
Roth, Philip "The Ghost Writer" - 1979

David Grossman, Israel, 2017
Israel Prize for Literature 2018, Nelly Sachs Prize 2019, Geschwister-Scholl-Preis 2008, Peace Prize of the German Book Trade 2010
Grossman, David "To the End of the Land" (Hebr.: אשה בורחת מבשורה/Isha Nimletet Mi'Bshora) - 2008 

Olga Tokarczuk, Poland, 2018
Nobel Prize in Literature 2018, International Writer of the Royal Society of Literature 2021
Tokarczuk, Olga "Primeval and Other Times" (PL: Prawiek i inne czasy) - 1996

 

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The link between the starter book and my last, they are both authors from Eastern Europe who have become famous here over the last couple of years.