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Leo-vardiashvili
Leo Vardiashvili
Maya-jaggi
Maya Jaggi

Memories of Flight: Fictionalising Georgia’s 2008 War with Russia

Leo Vardiashvili Maya Jaggi

Thursday, 21 March 2024

10:00am

1 hour

Pusey House: Chapel

£7 - £13.50

Novelist Leo Vardiashvili talks about war, fiction and memory and his much anticipated debut novel Hard By a Great Forest.

‘Our mother stayed so we could escape,’ says the narrator of Hard By a Great Forest, about a family torn apart by war. In the aftermath of Georgia’s 2008 war with Russia – when the breakaway region of South Ossetia is occupied by Russian troops – a father goes missing. As his son follows him from London to a decaying yet beautiful Georgian capital, Tbilisi, and a family attempts to put the past to rest, memories lie in wait like land mines. The novel was sparked in part by a 2015 news story about a flood that led to zoo animals, including a hippo, wandering the streets of Tbilisi.
Vardiashvili was born in Tbilisi and scarcely spoke English when he arrived in Britain as a refugee of civil war in Georgia aged 12. His English-language novel sparked a publishers’ bidding war and, out in January, was one the most anticipated débuts of 2024. It has been sold into 16 languages – including Georgian.

Here he talks to Maya Jaggi, founding director of the festival’s programme of Georgian literature and culture, who is a contributing art critic for FT. Her award-winning cultural writing has appeared widely, including in The New York Review of Books and The Guardian – where she was a profile writer and fiction critic for a decade. She is chair of the independent jury of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) Literature Prize 2024 and was artistic director of the UK’s first festival of Georgian writers, Where Europe Meets Asia: Georgia25, in 2016, and its online sequel, Georgia’s Fantastic Tavern, at the British Library and Writers’ House in 2021 – both of which she originated.

Part of the festival’s programme of Georgian literature and culture.

The Telegraph Festival media partner University of Oxford European Union Supported by the Delegation of the European Union to the UK Bodleian Libraries Festival cultural partner Oxford Martin School Festival ideas partner Oxford Mathematics Spanish Embassy The Spanish Embassy: supporters of the programme of Spanish literature and culture Cervantes Institute, London The Cervantes Institute, London elBullifoundation Iberia British Airways Embassy of the Dominican Republic Embassy of the Dominican Republic Blackwell’s Festival on-site and online bookseller Sotheby’s Symington Wines of the Douro Valley Compassion in World Farming Pasture to Plate Oxford Business College Where learning meets opportunity: education partners of the festival Old Bank Hotel Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection Old Parsonage Hotel Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection Oxford Brookes University Oxford International Centre for Publishing Critchleys Accountants to the festival Confucius Institute Voltaire Foundation Felicity Bryan Associates Goldmoney Properties Princeton University Press Prestige publishing partner. Celebrating 25 years in Europe in 2024 Oxford University Department for Continuing Education Jewish Book Week Partner of Oxford Literary Festival Jim Mellon Miles Young Tim and Marion Stevenson Martin and Elise Becket Smith Ian and Carol Sellars David Isaac Mary and Cecil Quillen Supporters of the programme of American literature and culture Other donors Yale University Press London New College New College founded 1379 Exeter College Exeter College: college home of the festival. Founded 1314 Worcester College Worcester College founded 1714 Lincoln College Lincoln College founded 1427 Trinity College Trinity College founded 1555 Magdalen College Magdalen College founded 1458 Brasenose College Brasenose College founded in 1512 Reuben College Reuben College founded in 2019 Harris Manchester College Harris Manchester College founded 1893 Pusey House Founded 1884 New Dutch Writing Human Ecology Project MACROVegan Bear Ram Elk Festival Digital Strategy & Web Design Racalia Olive Oil Olive oil from Sicily Paul Bloomfield Ltd University of Oxford Alumni Office Alumni Office The Sheldonian Theatre Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies Oxford University Images Oxford University Images CAV Oxford The Litmus Partnership Schoolreaders Windrush Group The Oxford Times BBC Radio Oxford Local radio partner Conference Oxford Ox in a Box OX magazine

The Oxford Literary Festival sponsors, donors & partners

The Telegraph Festival media partner University of Oxford European Union Supported by the Delegation of the European Union to the UK Bodleian Libraries Festival cultural partner Oxford Martin School Festival ideas partner Oxford Mathematics Spanish Embassy The Spanish Embassy: supporters of the programme of Spanish literature and culture Cervantes Institute, London The Cervantes Institute, London elBullifoundation Iberia British Airways Embassy of the Dominican Republic Embassy of the Dominican Republic Blackwell’s Festival on-site and online bookseller Sotheby’s Symington Wines of the Douro Valley Compassion in World Farming Pasture to Plate Oxford Business College Where learning meets opportunity: education partners of the festival Old Bank Hotel Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection Old Parsonage Hotel Five-star hotel partners of The Oxford Collection Oxford Brookes University Oxford International Centre for Publishing Critchleys Accountants to the festival Confucius Institute Voltaire Foundation Felicity Bryan Associates Goldmoney Properties Princeton University Press Prestige publishing partner. Celebrating 25 years in Europe in 2024 Oxford University Department for Continuing Education Jewish Book Week Partner of Oxford Literary Festival Jim Mellon Miles Young Tim and Marion Stevenson Martin and Elise Becket Smith Ian and Carol Sellars David Isaac Mary and Cecil Quillen Supporters of the programme of American literature and culture Other donors Yale University Press London New College New College founded 1379 Exeter College Exeter College: college home of the festival. Founded 1314 Worcester College Worcester College founded 1714 Lincoln College Lincoln College founded 1427 Trinity College Trinity College founded 1555 Magdalen College Magdalen College founded 1458 Brasenose College Brasenose College founded in 1512 Reuben College Reuben College founded in 2019 Harris Manchester College Harris Manchester College founded 1893 Pusey House Founded 1884 New Dutch Writing Human Ecology Project MACROVegan Bear Ram Elk Festival Digital Strategy & Web Design Racalia Olive Oil Olive oil from Sicily Paul Bloomfield Ltd University of Oxford Alumni Office Alumni Office The Sheldonian Theatre Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies Oxford University Images Oxford University Images CAV Oxford The Litmus Partnership Schoolreaders Windrush Group The Oxford Times BBC Radio Oxford Local radio partner Conference Oxford Ox in a Box OX magazine