The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Gospodinov, Georgi. Time Shelter. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2022.

Georgi Gospodinov's novel Time Shelter is written from the first person point of view of the protagonist, G.G. Throughout the novel, the author toys with conventional notions of point of view, form, structure, and plot. Gospodinov will thus shift between past and present tenses. An unidentified third person entity will at times assume control of G.G.'s narrative voice. Because the novel is a meta-narrative, as Time Shelter progresses, the boundaries between the author, the narrator, and the protagonist become indistinguishable. The same is true of the novel's past, present, and future, each of which blur into and become one another. The following guide employs the past tense and adheres to a more streamlined mode of explanation.

One September, G.G. began to work on a new novel. In the novel, he decided that a fictional individual would attempt to recreate the past for therapeutic reasons. Just as he was beginning to work on the project, he invented a man named Gaustine. Not long later, he and Gaustine met in person. The more time G.G. spent in Gaustine's company, the more he marveled at his enigmatic character. Although G.G. was convinced he had created Gaustine, Gaustine was autonomous. Like G.G., he was obsessed with the past. Unlike G.G., Gaustine was comfortable anywhere and everywhere he traveled.

When Gaustine told G.G. about his idea for the clinic of the past, G.G. was shocked. He had had this very same idea for a novel. Gaustine dismissed G.G., and went on to explain his ideas. At the clinic, each room and floor would be devoted to a different era, decade, or year. When patients with Alzheimer's or dementia came to the clinic, they could spend time in these rooms or on these floors. Doing so would awaken their memories, and thus restore their old selves to them. G.G. was fascinated by the idea and agreed to help Gaustine curate the sets.

The clinic was a success. Soon, G.G. and Gaustine were erecting sister clinics in different cities and countries. Not long later, iterations of the clinic were appearing around the world.

Because Gaustine was obsessed with the past, he was excited to see it grow beyond the parameters of the clinic. He soon established whole towns and cities set in the past. Over time, the past burst beyond these boundaries and into whole countries and continents.

Eventually, the past was spreading like a disease. The entirety of Europe decided that each nation would choose an era or year to which they would return. Throughout the continental Referendum on the Past, G.G. watched as each country descended into versions of their historical identities.

Following the Referendum, G.G. returned to New York City, where he continued work on his novel. The longer he worked on the project, the more dislocated from reality he became. Not unlike the ways in which the past spread into and consumed the present in Europe, G.G.'s fictional characters and worlds were bleeding into his identity and reality. He spent all of his time working at the library. The library was a refuge, yet it also further alienated G.G. from the world beyond his research and writing.