Saturday, day four of Festivaletteratura's 2024 edition, at the Basilica di Santa Barbara. Federica Manzon interviews Georgi Gospodinov, author of Romanzo Naturale (2007), Fisica della malinconia (2013), and Cronorifugio (2021). His last novel, The Gardener and Death, is a very personal one inspired by his father, who died last year. It has been recently translated into English.

There’s an undeniable theme of self-search and self-discovery in all Gospodinov's novels. In Romanzo naturale, for example, the breakdown of his marriage triggers a personal crisis for the main character; Fisica della malinconia, on the other hand, explores how too much empathy can become a disease. In Cronorifugio, a “clinic for the past” offers people the possibility to live in the decade of their choice. In each novel, the characters are looking for a way to uncover some knowledge of themselves.

“Who are we?” is therefore a recurrent question in his works, and the author’s answer to it is to look back at the past. People, values, sounds and stories: this is what makes humans what they are and should motivate them to live fully in the present. The future, on the other hand, is an “empty room”; a foreign land that can be scary and dark.

Time, geography and stories are the three main pillars Gospodinov builds when weaving his narratives. As a child growing up in Bulgaria, he was surrounded by dreamy tales about travelling away and accepting time’s role in our lives, a sort of natural order that resonates through his work.

The role of childhood is never forgotten. After reiterating that Bulgaria “doesn’t have oil, chili pepper, anything”, an audience member asks where he would like to be reborn. His reply: “We are all migrants stemming from the true original land: childhood”.