Death and the Gardener by Georgi Gospodinov
Bulgarian author Georgi Gospodinov tackles the immensity of grief in his latest book Death and the Gardener, an exploration of his relationship with his dying father
Georgi Gospodinov returns to shelves with his latest book, Death and the Gardener – a gentle exploration into his relationship with his dying father. Gospodinov picks through the weeds of time to explore the symbiotic relationship his father kept with the plants he tended, and the metaphor of the body as a garden, paralleled with the covert and destructive nature of cancer.
Gospodinov recalls the pride and purpose gardening gave his father throughout his cancer treatment, but also the exertion that the labour claimed from a man already battling his own body. With the act of gardening, Gospodinov examines a dignity afforded to his father, the desperate desire to feel useful through doing in the face of illness and a connection with nature. He illuminates his father's love for gardening, his repotting of dark-blue tulips from Holland with every house move and the powerlessness of watching a parent dwindle before one's eyes; the childish yet acute fear of abandonment.
Gospodinov handles parental death with deft sensitivity, his memories brief and rounded. He returns to his introduction to death as a child, remembering the understanding that loss is not limited to the young, as sobs of a neighbour echo along a street after the death of his granddaughter. With his words, Gospodinov handles the subject with immense care – repotting difficult and delicate memories of his father onto the page.
