Francophone readers treated to translation of acclaimed novel by Nino Kharatishvili

Nino Kharatishvili was one of six nominees of German Book Prize for the novel in 2018. Photo: Danny Merz.

Agenda.ge, 30 Dec 2021 - 16:17, Tbilisi,Georgia

Readers in French-speaking countries can now look forward to reading The Cat and the General, a German Book Prize-nominated novel by prize-winning author Nino Kharatishvili, as the book has been made available in French through Belfond publishing house.

Writers' House of Georgia revealed this week it had supported the translation of the work by the Schiller Memorial Award-winning writer, with efforts by translator Rose Labourie producing the French edition for the publisher.

The 592-page novel, with Kharatishvili's trademark explorations across time, looks at Alexander Orlov, a Russian oligarch who has moved to Berlin but cannot escape his guilt-ridden memories from the First Chechen War in the 1990s.

Troubled by one particular memory tied to a young Chechen woman, Orlov — or “The General”, as he is known to everyone — goes back to the Caucasus in search of atonement.

Characterised by its publisher as a "story of violence, passion and guilt inextricably linked to the history of contemporary Europe", and a "powerful drum-driven fresco by Nino Haratischwili, the new sensation of German [literature]", the novel has already served as a basis for theatre adaptation.

In 2019, The Cat and the General was used by Jette Steckel, winner of the 2007 Theatre Today Young Director of the Year Award, for a production that premiered at Hamburg’s Thalia Theatre. The staging followed the German Book Prize nomination for the work a year before.

For Kharatishvili, the book follows her widely successful The Eighth Life (for Brilka), an intergenerational epic distinguished with the Bertolt Brecht Prize for Literature, and her selection for the Anna Seghers Prize, another prestigious literary honour in Germany.