The Physics of Sorrow

"Georgi Gospodinov wants to blow your mind — or maybe just provide the ultimate bathroom reader. The formal playfulness suggests Kundera with A.D.D. and potty jokes." — Ed Park,

A finalist for both the Strega Europeo and Gregor von Rezzori awards (and winner of every Bulgarian honor possible), reaffirms Georgi Gospodinov's place as one of Europe's most inventive and daring writers.

Using the myth of the Minotaur as its organizing image, the narrator of Gospodinov's long-awaited novel constructs a labyrinth of stories about his family, jumping from era to era and viewpoint to viewpoint, exploring the mindset and trappings of Eastern Europeans. Incredibly moving — such as with the story of his grandfather accidentally being left behind at a mill — and extraordinarily funny — see the section on the awfulness of the question "how are you?" is a book that you can inhabit, tracing connections, following the narrator down various "side passages," getting pleasantly lost in the various stories and empathizing with the sorrowful, misunderstood Minotaur at the center of it all.

Physics of Sorrow