Hard by a Great Forest

(Hardback)

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I gasped, laughed, and wept my way through it KHALED HOSSEINI Tender and raw and funny, it's a rattling good read COLUM McCANN A wildly charming debut propulsive, funny, and profound ELIF BATUMAN 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. Sabas father is missing, and the trail leads back to Tbilisi, Georgia. Its been two decades since Irakli fled his war-torn homeland with two young sons, now grown men. Two decades since he saw their mother, who stayed so they could escape. At long last, Tbilisi has lured him home. But when Iraklis phone calls stop, a mystery begins... Arriving in the city as escaped zoo animals prowl the streets, Saba picks up the trail of clues: strange graffiti, bewildering messages transmitted through the radio, pages from his fathers unpublished manuscript scattered like breadcrumbs. As the voices of those left behind pull at the edges of his world, Saba will discover that all roads lead back to the past, and to secrets swallowed up by the great forests of Georgia. In a winding pursuit through the magic and mystery of returning to a lost homeland, Hard by a Great Forest is a rare, searching tale of home, memory and sacrifice of one familys mission to rescue one another, and put the past to rest.

Reviews

Astonishingly crafted with history, candour, beauty, grief and just a little magic. A book like no other, from an imagination like no other. Vardiashvili has written a triumph -- Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize winning author of LESS IS LOST
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 ... By turns political and philosophical, it introduces a fine new voice in contemporary fiction -- Colum McCann
A wildly charming debut propulsive, funny, and profound -- Elif Batuman
Propulsive, profoundly moving and rich with humor and heartbreak, Hard by a Great Forest mesmerised me from the very first page. Inspired by Vardiashvili's own family story, this novel will capture your heart -- Jean Kwok

Author Bio

Leo Vardiashvili came to London with his family as a refugee from Georgia when he was twelve years old. He studied English Literature at Queen Mary University of London. Hard by a Great Forest is his first novel.