On my birthday a month and change back this 2022 novel (English translation 2025) by Nino Haratischwili arrived wrapped under my birthday tree. Apparently it had been on my Amazon list, where it likely landed after being on the Economist list of best books of the year or something like that. Honestly I don't remember.
Clocking in at 700 pages and change, one of its many cover blurbs likens it to Elena Ferrante's Neapolitan series. Honestly that may be a stretch, but it was still quite solid.
The Lack of Light chronicles the trajectory of post-Soviet Georgia and Tbilisi through the prism of four female friends who grew up around one apartment building and its courtyard. In my mind's eye it's a Stalinka, a sturdy building from around WWII but before the dawn of the shoddy neo-modernist buildings which sprouted all over Eastern Europe like shitty quadrangular mushrooms from the 60s forward.
There's a lot of drama around civil war, love, internecine gang wars in which the four protagonists' brothers are engaged, art etc. It's solid and worth reading, if ultimately as much Oprah as Ferrante. Sadly, there are no really compelling description of khachapuri or other delicious Georgian foods. Good enough that I may check out the author's other books, but I won't sprint out and grab them.
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