Dato Turashvili

Dato Turashvili is one of Georgia’s best known writers, but unfortunately only a couple of his books are available in English translation. This new book is in both Georgian and English and is a lavishly illustrated love letter to Georgian wine. Turashvili makes a strong case – which not everyone will accept – that Georgia is the birthplace of wine. The country apparently has been making wine for at least 8,000 years, and the evidence that it was the first to do so is not only archaeological but linguistic. In those 8,000 years, the worst period was during the 70-year-long Soviet occupation in the 20th century, when the quality of the wine was radically reduced to meet the needs of the planned economy. According to Turashvili, the best thing that happened to Georgian wine in recent years was the Russian decision in 2006 to ban imports. The result has been a boom for the production of high-quality wines for export to Western markets.… (mehr)

This books tells the tragic story of a group of young Georgian men (and one woman) who chose to hijack a Soviet airliner in November 1983 in an attempt to escape to the West. As the author explains at the beginning, this was not a book he intended to publish, and that he hoped Georgia could put its Soviet past behind it. But following the Russian attack on Georgia in 2008, he went ahead with the book. The hijackers were all artists of various kinds, and the central character in the book is a young actor who was already quite well known in Georgia. When the bungled hijacking failed following the storming of the aircraft by Soviet special forces, the surviving hijackers were arrested, interrogated and tried -- and all sentenced to death except for the one woman, who had been pregnant. A monk who had nothing to do with the hijacking was framed by the Soviets as the ringleader of the conspiracy. Georgian Communist leader (and later Soviet Foreign Minister) Eduard Shevardnadze comes off particularly badly in the book, despite his reputation in the West as something of a liberal. This book tells the true story of this event clearly and well, and doesn't flinch from the horror of it all (in particular what the Soviets do to the woman). A terribly sad story and very good book by one of Georgia's best known living writers.… (mehr)