site.btaBulgarian Writer Georgi Gospodinov on Literature's Superpowers

"The power of stories to prolong life, the ability of reading to physically slow down time, and the fact that stories create meaning are three of the seven superpowers of literature," Bulgarian writer Georgi Gospodinov said during the Black Sea Literary Festival at the Regional Library in Burgas on Friday.

He pointed out that the topic of the inexhaustible gift of literature and its superpowers will be at the core of a lecture by which he will open the literary festival in the Santa Croce Basilica in Florence. "The idea of the unfailing gift came from a corner of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, where someone provided a lot of money in the form of an "unfailing gift", so that fresh flowers could be placed there every day. I used it as a metaphor for the lecture on the unfailing gift of literature and its seven superpowers, which are much more, but I just like the number seven," Gospodinov pointed out.

The writer illustrated the power to prolong life by the story of Scheherazade, who managed to add another day to life by the tales she told. He emphasized that the slowing down of time through reading will sooner or later be demonstrated as a law of physics. "When you read a book, time physically starts to flow at a different pace. Reading confuses time, and I believe in that," Gospodinov stressed. He explained the third superpower of literature, namely that stories produce meaning, by saying that a rose without a story is just a rose, just like an unsmoked pack of cigarettes which without a story is nothing more than that. "When we put this into a story, we make it meaningful. We elevate it," he said.

Gospodinov was accompanied by the translator of his books, Angela Rodel, with whom they won the 2023 International Booker Prize for the novel Time Shelter. The conversation at the meeting focused on Gospodinov's latest novel The Gardener and Death as well. Rodel revealed that shortly after she began working on the translation of the book, which describes the events and emotions of the writer around the death of his father, who died of lung cancer, her husband Viktor was diagnosed with the same disease.

"This book was a great comfort to me, because I had never experienced anything like this. I am lucky as my parents are still alive. On the one hand, it was terrifying, because I knew what would happen. On the other hand, I had something like a manual from a person who is so close to me," Rodel said, adding that she will forever be grateful to Gospodinov for the scene that describes the onset of death, because that way she manages to recognize the moment and be prepared for it.

Gospodinov pointed out that while writing The Gardener and Death, he delved into a lot into books about customs performed upon death. One of those that impressed him is how after the house owner dies, the rest of the family go to the barn or garden and tell every living creature that the owner may be gone but life goes on and everything should continue as usual. Gospodinov also noted that he had discovered that in some areas and regions people call the soul a fly. "I liked that very much. It is so ephemeral. And I am a big fan of flies, as is known," he said.

Gospodinov concluded that he hopes his book, although on a somber topic, will be about light. "I wanted that to linger, especially at the end. A fateful lightness", he emphasized.