Giorgi Lobzhanidze awarded at Qatar's Nazra poetry competition

Poet Giorgi Lobzhanidze was declared winner at the Nazra annual poetry competition in Qatar last week, with his poem Garden in the Desert earning the award and an invitation for its author to the International Poetry Day in Qatar next spring.

Lobzhanidze's work entered the competition - themed around "Human - a medium between poetry and kindness" - after he was asked to translate pieces by Georgian poets to Arabic, in addition to submitting his own poem to the contest.

Organisers accepted his translations of 10 Georgian poets, with the works set to be published in a form of a bilingual brochure, Lobzhanidze told his social media followers. Meanwhile, his own poem enjoyed a successful run at the event on its way to the award-winning finale.

The Georgian translator characterised Garden in the Desert as containing "intense orientalism", and also credited organisational support of the Georgian embassy in Qatar for his success.

For Lobzhanidze, the prize is the latest among recognitions for his poetry, the most recent of which included a selection of his collection Šventofobija among the top 15 publications of the kind in Lithuania in 2020, and a spot among finalists of the Il Tiburtino International Literary Prize for Unpublished Poetry in Italy last year.

The Georgian also featured at the Xenia Book Fair in southern Italy's Reggio Calabria in 2019, where he met literature enthusiasts following the publication of 4+4=∞, his collection of works, by the Giuliano Ladolfi publishing house.