Riana

Riana asked Leo Vardiashvili:

I thought of another question: While reading Saba's view of the changes he and other characters encountered, I felt your deep connection with the details you wrote so well. When you first went home to Georgia was it also cathartic?

Leo Vardiashvili My homecoming was 17 years after my departure. So it was quite an intense experience - a lot like what Saba experiences (minus missing family members, escaped zoo animals, police attention, etc.).

What was cathartic was starting to put those feeling on the page - the novel started partly as a form of self-therapy to get my head around that first visit back to Georgia.

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Christina French

Christina French asked Leo Vardiashvili:

Thank you for this beautiful book. It was so beautiful it felt like a piece of music. Curious if you find yourself rereading your own novel just to be with your beloved characters again? (I just want to reread it to be with them in that ratty car.)

Riana

Riana asked Leo Vardiashvili:

I love this quote from one of your interviews - "I think it’s Nodar who says: ‘It’s a shell, it kills anyway, it doesn’t matter where it came from. I don’t care if it’s the Russians or Georgians.’ And that kind of sums it up, it doesn’t matter [who is doing the shelling], you’re destroying things, you’re hurting people’s families.” Did you lose any family during the civil war?

Riana

Riana asked Leo Vardiashvili:

Yes, it's a great answer. The boulder image is such a perfect explanation, and this experience of the characters seizing the dialogue out of your hands sounds rather exciting. Living with a cast of independent voices in your head would certainly be a challenge - and I bet it's hard to turn them off at times. Have you often had to jot things down during the night when you are hoping to sleep?

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Leo Vardiashvili

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