Author, translator Naira Gelashvili honoured with German-Georgian Culture Award

Acclaimed Georgian author, translator and Germanist Naira Gelashvili has been selected as the recipient of this year’s Givi Margvelashvili German-Georgian Culture Award, honouring her literary work in bringing the two cultures closer.

Gelashvili, who is symbolically distinguished for the prize in the year when Georgian literature and culture was highlighted at the major Frankfurt Book Fair, will be awarded next week in Tbilisi.

The event, to be hosted at Cafe Goethe, will see addresses by literature professionals honouring the recipient of the prize.

Gelashvili became the first Georgian writer to be selected for the lit.COLOGNE International Festival of Literature, a major event in the German city, earlier this year.

She was in the city to present her book I’m Leaving for Madrid, translated and published in German this year by Verbrecher Verlag publishing house.

The author was one of 59 literary creatives invited to take part in The Blue Sofa panel sessions at the 2017 Leipzig Book Fair. At the event she spoke about her 2012 work I am That One, published in Germany in 2016.

Born in Georgia’s east, Gelashvili moved to the capital Tbilisi in 1954. She studied German language and literature at the Tbilisi State University and later taught at the principal academic institution of the city.

Following Georgia’s declaration of independence she worked as the president’s Advisor for Cultural Policy and National Minorities in the 1990s and founded the Caucasian House cultural exchange institution in Tbilisi in 1993.

Her prolific work includes novels and stories in fiction and documentary genres. Gelashvili is also widely recognised as a major translator of works by German-language authors and poets including Rainer Maria Rilke, Else Lasker-Scüller, Thomas Mann and Hermann Hesse.

Her accolades include the 2013 Saba Literary Award for Novel of the Year for I am That One and the 2008 Ilia Chavchavadze State Prize for Literary Work.

The 2018 recipient of the Givi Margvelashvili Award also became the first Georgian translator of works by the celebrated German-based philosopher and author.

Gelashvili joins translator and poet David Tserediani and Lasha Bakradze, Director of Giorgi Leonidze State Museum of Georgian Literature, among previous recipients of the prize.

The Award was established in 2014 by Goethe Institute Georgia and the Institute for International Cooperation of the the German Adult Education Association (DVV International).