JEDDAH: While browsing a European bookshop on my recent travels, I asked a staff member to recommend something deeply devastating to sink myself into as the rain tap-danced behind the closed door. Before she could even respond, my hand gravitated to a book cover that looked like it could play the part perfectly: Georgi Gospodinov’s “Death and the Gardener.” After reading the very first line, I knew I had made the right decision. It read: “My father was a gardener. Now he’s a garden.” “That’s a g
