Hard by a Great Forest

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Tbilisis littered with memories that await me like landmines. The dearly departed voices I silenced long ago have come back without my permission. The situation calls for someone with a plan. I didnt even bring toothpaste. Saba is just a child when he flees his home in Georgia with his older brother, Sandro, and father, Irakli, for asylum in the UK after Russias occupation of South Ossetia. Two decades later, all three men are struggling to make peace with the past, haunted by the places and people they left behind. When Irakli decides to return to Georgia, pulled back by memories of a lost wife and a decaying but still beautiful homeland, Saba and Sandro wait eagerly for news. But within weeks of his arrival, Irakli disappears, and the final email they receive from him causes a mystery to unfold before them: My boys, I did something I cant undo. I need to get away from here before those people catch me. Maybe in the mountains Ill be safe. I left a trail I cant erase. Do not follow it.' In a journey that will lead him to the very heart of a conflict that has marred generations and fractured his own family, Saba must retrace his father's footsteps to discover what remains of their homeland and its people. By turns savage and tender, compassionate and harrowing, Hard by a Great Forest is a powerful and ultimately hopeful novel about the individual and collective trauma of war, and the indomitable spirit of a people determined not only to survive, but to remember those who did not.

Reviews

This novel annihilated me. I gasped, laughed, and wept my way through it. Rich with irony and animated with astonishing humanity, this tale of a young Georgian refugees odyssey into his birthplace to rescue family left my heart bruised and battered and aching for more -- Khaled Hosseini
This novel blows open the heart of the past. It's a mystery, it's a picaresque, it's a comedy, and it's an authentic song of belonging and unbelonging. Tender and raw and funny, it's a rattling good read about the loss of home and the primacy of story-telling. By turns political and philosophical, it introduces a fine new voice in contemporary fiction -- Colum McCann

Author Bio

Leo Vardiashvili came to London with his family as a refugee from Georgia when he was thirteen years old. He studied English Literature at Queen Mary College, University of London and now works in the financial sector. This is his first novel.