Languages

Davit Gabunia's cinematic debut novel, Falling Apart, from which this excerpt comes, recalls Rear Window in its dark exploration of voyeurism, and broke ground it its treatment of a male sexual liaison. Gabunia found fame aged twenty-two as the Georgian translator of Harry Potter, and later Shakespeare and Ibsen.   The people in the photo look like blue and black blotches. I can’t pick out Tina. Just last night she was lying in bed, the...

Tamta Melashvili's 2015 novel, Eastwards, from which this excerpt comes, is the story of a young woman, Irina, in present-day Georgia, who is simultaneously suffering from depression, a vanished lover, and a taboo medical condition, vaginismus. She is researching Elene Dariani, a mystical poet believed to have had a secret affair with the famous Georgian poet Paolo Iashvili. Cofounder in 1915 of the Blue Horn Symbolists, Iashvili committed suicide in 1937 during Stalin’s...

Lasha Bugadze's A Small Country, which won the Saba, IliaUni, and Writers’ House Litera prizes in Georgia––all for novel of the year in 2018––is based on the real scandal surrounding the publication of the author's 2001 short story “The First Russian.” The story outraged some MPs and clergy with its satirical allusions to the wedding night of Georgia’s revered medieval Queen Tamar, whose first husband was a Russian...

Archil Kikodze's The Southern Mammoth, originally published in Georgian in 2017, takes place in a single day in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, as a filmmaker leaves his apartment to make way for a friend with a date, to wander freely through his city and his memories.    Armed with long poles, the policemen are busy at the Ortachala 1 hydro station. It seems they are the only ones on this sunny wintry morning who have something to do. They push as hard as they can,...

When representatives from Georgian publishing houses first visited the Frankfurt Book Fair at the end of the 1990s, they could only dream that in 2018, some twenty years later, Georgia would enjoy the status of guest of honor. Nevertheless, to our surprise and delight, the dream has become reality, and now, as if seeing the light at the end of a long tunnel, Georgian writers and publishers find themselves face to face with the most important project in their history, the main event of...

The human embryo has a special status because of its potential for development to a stage at which everyone would accord it the status of a human person. —The Warnock Committee (U.K.), Report on Human Fertilisation and Embryology, 1984   Children born by artificial insemination will also be problematic, for their lives have developed as a result of the destruction of numerous embryos. —Patriarch Ilia II of Georgia, Christmas Epistle, January 2014   Listen to...

Lela Samniashvili reflects on the terrible costs of war Listen to Lela Samniashvili read her poem "Military Drill" in the original Georgian.   Three years ago, during the war, our house was burgled. When I returned everything was upside down, Our possessions had probably borne those alien fingers with hatred. They stole my gold ring and several bottles of wine. They were probably in a hurry—only the drawers had been emptied.  They took nothing from the shelves. And yet I...

Georgian poet Lela Samniashvili on the "fatal defect" of time, and the past in the present Listen to poet Lela Samniashvili read "A Run in My Stocking" in the original Georgian If I leave, you will always be tortured with the feeling of guilt that you could not leave me. But from where I look at it, “always” seems so short, just like the past, or the future. The future— What do we know about it? There are precisely as many types of futures  as we want and even...

Georgian writer Gela Charkviani describes his early days as an aide to then-President Eduard Shevardnadze.   Listen to Gela Charkviani read "Shevardnadze and Me" in the original Georgian   My relationship with Eduard Shevardnadze developed slowly and painfully, and our first business meeting ended in complete failure. An overseas delegation was due to arrive in Georgia, and I had brought for his approval a plan for the visit, which had been prepared at the Ministry of Foreign...

Listen to Irakli Kakabaze read his poem "The Children of Beslan (To My Children)" in the original Georgian   Georgian poet Irakli Kakabade remembers the victims and the survivors of the Beslan School Siege Today is the First of September and As natural, As the sun’s setting and rising, The flowers’ budding and wilting,  The healing of open wounds, And death.  This isn’t a school bell ringing,  It’s the bells of a church. The mothers...

Irakli Kakabadze uploaded a number of short poems to various social media sites over the course of several years under the pseudonym Iaki Kabe, fooling many into believing they were the work of an unknown Japanese poet translated into Georgian. His poetry became so popular on the Internet that when a selection was published in book form, the book topped national bestseller lists.   Irakli Kakabadze reads "Seventeen Poems by Iake Kabe" in the original Georgian...

Naira Gelashvili eavesdrops on the beginning of a star-crossed affair Listen to author Naira Gelashvili read this story in the original Georgian.   I entered the tower. I didn’t stop in the front room, but took her to the second room. Here, long wooden benches stood on the right and left, and along the middle wall—a wooden bench, covered in bedding. A window was cut out of the fourth wall.     I was enveloped by a good mood, which I think came...

In the end, one sentence awaits us all—death  Joseph Brodsky   Because we are all murderers, he told himself. We are all on both sides, if we are any good, and no good will come of any of it. Ernest Hemingway, Islands in the Stream   God inscribed my grief  On my sword I killed the man I’d sworn to be a brother to I used a sword on my brother They are chasing me to murder me They put a trap for me on the road Folk song   Listen to author Beka...

I’ve got a surprise for you, she said. We came out onto the main road, the empty main road. I gave a blank reply: a surprise? Get a move on! Nintso sounded impatient. We’ve got stuff to do and I want to show you my surprise. OK, I said. But on one condition. Fine, she said, tell me later. Why are you going this way, I asked. They’ll see us. The other way takes longer. Nintso, I said, they’ll see us. Fine. Nintso looked at me wide-eyed. Fine. We went round the other...

I had no idea what was wrong with the girl. She'd make her move, hold her breath for a few seconds, then move her hand toward the chessboard again and touch the piece she had just put down, as if she was caressing it, or else lightly grasp the very top of the piece with her pale fingers and then turn it slightly, move it a few millimeters to one side, whisper "J'adoube" in a warm, slightly choked voice and then rest her blonde head back down on her fleshy palm. She did this after...

Yesterday, I was sick, I was dying, Now Zozia must have me on her mind. There's a demon in Galaktioni But there's an angel in me. Every day I receive precious letters. I must go to the garden, today's cold is bitter. The earth gleams in Galaktioni But there's a heavenly spark in me. Far away, the wind shrieks; nearby, a nemesis. Night's falling; it's seven sharp. There's blue in Galaktioni But in my verse, the abyss. Yesterday, I was...

Now, no doubt, the hour must be late . . . Despair has settled for the night in my heart, Tortured once more by bitter regret— What time is it? What time is it? Beyond the window where I stand, implacable night. Only autumn has dawned for me. Maybe it's three o'clock, could it really be three? What time is it? What time is it? Maybe somehow one-third of this . . . But a glance outside shows black. From the station the bell screams thirteen-- What time is it? What...