Author Zaza Burchuladze receives Berlin city scholarship for literary work

Berlin-based Georgian author Zaza Burchuladze has been granted the capital's work scholarship for 2020 after being picked among foreign-language writers in the city.

Burchuladze will benefit from the Berlin Senate Department for Culture and Europe scholarship, granted to 10 authors of non-German literature and amounting to €240,000 in total.

Co-recipient of last year's Brücke Berlin Literary and Translator Award - presented to him and translator Natia Mikeladze-Bakhsoliani for the novel A Tourist’s Breakfast - Burchuladze and other authors were picked for the scholarship from nearly 180 applications.

Writers from Sami Berdugo (writing in Hebrew) to Sausan Hasan (Arabic) and Yildiz Cemiloglu (Kurdish) were among those also picked for the scholarship.

A jury involving foreign language literary professionals including Rike Bolte, Eva Bonné, Gadi Goldberg, Vera Kurlenina, Ruben Schenzle, Frank Sievers and Dorota Stroinska picked the recipients for the 2020 grant.

The recipients will be formally presented in summer of next year at the Literary Colloquium Berlin, a forum hosting authors and translators in the German capital.

Burchuladze, author of works including Adibas and Inflatable Angel, has been called "one of the most important writers of post-Soviet Georgian literature” by the Wiedling Literary Agency. A Tourist's Breakfast has been praised as a "masterpiece” by Georgian literary critic Levan Berdzenishvili.

Born in Tbilisi in 1973, the author graduated from the State Academy of Arts before working on novels, short prose and translation of Russian literature into Georgian.

He has been distinguished with prizes including the 2011 Georgian Novel of the Year for Inflatable Angel and 2003 Tsinandali Award for Best Novel for Mineral Jazz.

The Senate Department for Culture and Europe scholarship begins in January of each year, with selected authors receiving €2,000 every month for a year.

In selecting their recipients, organisers seek works that feature "quality, viability and continuity" from authors looking for benefits to their artistic development. The scholarship also aims to "keep alive the literary scene of Berlin by promoting innovative texts and their authors".