Time Shelter's author Georgi Gospodinov (right) and translator Angela Rodel (left) (Photo: The Guardian)

The book concerns the opening of a "clinic for the past" that offers a promising treatment for Alzheimer's sufferers.

Chair of judges Leila Slimani described Time Shelter as "a brilliant novel full of irony and melancholy".

Other judges said Time Shelter is creative, with bold and shocking prose, exploring the dangerous appeal of nostalgia, selective memories, and the hereditariness of pain. 

The International Booker Prize is an annual award, honoring original novels or collections of short stories written in any language, that have been translated into English and published in the UK and Ireland.

Last year, the winner was Tomb of Sand by Indian novelist Geetanjali Shree, and translated by Daisy Rockwell.