The lost light of Nino Haratischwili

The lost light
the Nino Haratischwili

«A lightning-fast Georgian epic» (Kultur) by the author of The Eighth Life (for Brilka), winner of the Anna Seghers Prize, the Literaturpreis «Text & Sprache» Prize and the Bertolt Brecht Prize, with more than a million readers and translated into twenty-eight languages

The 20th century is drawing to a close and in Soviet Georgia, cries for self-determination are growing louder. The fates of four radically different girls are linked by the courtyard that separates their houses in a Tbilisi neighbourhood. Together, Dina, Nene, Ira and Keto, the narrator, navigate the end of childhood and the beginning of adulthood, experience their first great love and face the violence and precariousness that erupt with the country’s independence and the arrival of a turbulent democracy that will eventually open an unavoidable gap between their families.

With echoes of Elena Ferrante, The Lost Light is an epic of friendship and betrayal in the context of a country that is beginning to take its first steps, a revolution that sweeps away the youth and a constant struggle against a future of separation and pain.

Nino Haratischwili Haratischwili was born in Tbilisi, Georgia, in 1983 and has lived in Germany since 2003. In addition to being a novelist, she is also a playwright and theatre director. The Eighth Life (for Brilka) (Alfaguara, 2018), her third novel, has been translated into twenty-eight languages, has sold more than a million copies worldwide and has become one of the most important titles of recent European literature. Among the awards that Haratischwili has received for this book are the Anna Seghers Prize, the Literaturpreis des Kulturkreises der deutschen Wirtschaft (now called the Literaturpreis “Text & Sprache”) and the Bertolt Brecht Prize. In addition, the work was acclaimed by the two main German-language newspapers, Der Spiegel and Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagzeitung, as the best novel of the year. La Gata y el General (The Cat and the General, Alfaguara, 2020), a finalist for the Deutschen Buchpreis, established Haratischwili as an indispensable writer of contemporary literature. In January 2023, she was awarded the Carl Zuckmayer Medal, one of the most prestigious prizes in Germany, for her contribution to the country’s language and literature. La luz perdida (The Lost Light, Alfaguara, 2023) is her latest novel.