‘Hard by a Great Forest’ by Leo Vardiashvili    (2024) – 338 pages

Here is a lively and humorous novel that takes place in a remote war-torn region in the Caucasus Mountains of far eastern Europe, in the country of Georgia.

Saba was only 8 years old when he and his brother Sandro and his father Irakli left Tbilisi, Georgia because of the war there in 1992. In their rush to leave the war-torn capital of Georgia, they had to leave their mother / wife Eka behind. She did not have a passport. The rest of the family moved to London, England.

“Life in Tbilisi was always on shaky ground when Georgia broke away from the Soviet Union in 1991. Decapitated, the government staggered on for a few months on momentum alone. It was a losing game. A question of when, not if.”

Now it is more than twenty years later, and Saba’s mother has died and his father and brother have both gone back to Georgia. However Saba hasn’t heard anything from either of them in a long time. He decides to head back to Tbilisi himself to look for and find them.

“Tbilisi’s a city that has been invaded, leveled, and rebuilt more than thirty times. Over the centuries, all manner of empires and their unhinged rulers have had their way with the city – the Ottomans, the Byzantines, the Russians. As a result Tbilisi’s architecture is schizophrenic.”

Tbilisi itself is no longer war torn, but the fighting is still going on in Ossetia and Abkhazia in the Caucasus Mountains that were part of Georgia but have been reclaimed by Russia. In his search for his father and brother, Saba must go to these regions still at war.

So this is a story of a young man returning to the place where he grew up as a little kid. He hears the voices of those who lived there back then and were very familiar to him. He hears these voices from his childhood of both the living and the dead. More often than not, these voices are heckling or berating Saba.

Later, Saba finds out that his childhood home has been turned into a shoe shop.

On his return to Tbilisi, Saba meets this new couple, Nodar and Keti, who befriend him and give him a place to stay. They are originally from Ossetia and they have lost their daughter Natia in the war. Nodar also drives Saba around on his searches for his father and brother. Saba owes a lot to “the dubious miracle of Nodar”.

Saba’s search leads him and Nodar to the Tbilisi police station.

“Down here, they haven’t bothered to wash the Soviet stench off the walls. Down here, it smells of lives ruined on a whim.”

So far I have described the plot of ‘Hard by a Great Forest’ so that it sounds quite serious due to the continuing wars in and near the country of Georgia. However what makes this novel special is the playful, even humorous, tone of Saba as he tells of his search. Yes, there is a lot of poignant death and destruction due to the wars, but the reader gets a strong sense that life goes on even under these difficult conditions. Saba uses a variety of comedic and dramatic techniques to tell his story. This keeps things from getting dull.

Tbilisi Zoo Animals on the Loose after Flood

The novel takes place in 2015. That was the year that the Tbilisi Zoo was flooded and all the animals escaped. This was a real-life occurrence, not something the author made up. So on their travels around the city, Saba and Nodar come across bears, tigers, and a giant hippo which have escaped from the zoo.

‘Hard by a Great Forest’ is a playful and very funny novel which may also break your heart.

Grade :   A