Nana Abuladze won the Saba Award for the best literary debut in 2021 for the book “Akumi”. If you have already had the pleasure of reading a novel or will read it in the future, it is understandable why – writing a debut book in which the action takes place in different times and places, and the story is told from many different perspectives, is not easy. Moreover, the work deals with topics that require courage to talk about – the story of a child born without sex is intertwined with gender expectations, social pressure, the search for the real essence of man, nature.
Not lacking in courage and skill, it was evident in her subsequent texts as well – first she followed the story of five female characters of the Bible in “New Perception” – a book that can be read as independent stories or as a single text. In the third book, she prepared her master’s thesis and compared the stories of Mikheil Javakhishvili and Mariam Garikuli on the basis of gender.
Now she is again in search of a new perception, a narrative angle. Her next work will be a horror text based on personal experience. When I was able to talk to her after a long-term desire, she also talked about the new work and told me that if she can overcome this challenge, a new height for her, the work would see the light of day.
In addition to books, we also talked a little about childhood, the process of creative search and writing, the current news in the country, which excites me as a citizen and as a writer – on the one hand, the Russian law threatens to isolate the country from the Western space, and on the other hand, with the homophobic law, which also provides for censorship, a possible ban the target will be all three of her published books so far. In short, I will introduce you better to Nana Abuladze – writer, researcher, reader and literary scholar.
Childhood, Reading and Ariting
Vakho Kareli / Aprili Media
She spent his childhood in Tbilisi, and spent summers in Kvareli, with his grandmother. As she recalls, she was a lonely child, finding it difficult to find common interests with other children. There wasn’t much entertainment at that time – a zoo, a circus, and a Christmas tree set up by TSU students on New Year’s Eve, where they gave out candies, and once she won at least 20,000 candies. She fell in love with books from a young age, even when she could not read and his aunt read children’s literature to her. She remembers, I made my aunt read that illustrated book so many times, the cover fell off.
“My mother used to read the children’s Bible to me. We lived in Vera then, and I used to tell these stories to people while walking in the park. As I remember, in my early childhood there was no sharp line between the reality in which I lived and in which the characters of the book existed. I wanted Karlsson to live on the roof of my house, and I hoped that he could. I was waiting, maybe one day I would hear the hum of the propeller. Before I got to school, I also developed an interest in music and firmly decided that I would become a violinist. I was 7 years old when I was really introduced to music,” recalls Nana, and says that music and literature were two separate interests for him, which became connected when she started writing.
From the age when she realized that the texts she was reading were fictional, she began to think about the idea of the books she read, observing how the world was created. She started writing in his teenage years and delved deeply into the techniques used by writers, the fabric of language.
“When I first read “Zhuzha” by Nino Kharatishvili, which is a very cinematic book, I wanted to find out how she managed to do it. I noticed that she puts details in the text that you may not need to understand the story, but are like the bricks that build the artistic world. In addition, there was a text like a novel before “Akumi”, which turned out to be a good exercise – I read it to my close friends and told them what I wanted to achieve, and when they told me that I succeeded, I already knew how to achieve the goal in the case of “Akumi”.
Except for the “exercise” text written before “Akumi”, she first wrote diaries, then stories, which helped him in her relationship with language, although at first she considered writing only as a hobby. Then she took part in one of the literary contests for teenagers. She sent two stories, won and went to Frankfurt.
“At the book festival in Frankfurt, competent people read my stories and told me to take this work seriously and continue writing. It was the first time that they looked at my writing like that and said that I have talent, which no one had said before. After that, I started to think seriously about writing, and this impulse turned out to be so strong that I could not resist and it became my main job.
During her teenage years, she also discovered that she couldn’t live up to the gender expectations that she thought came naturally with the transition from childhood to womanhood.
“For some reason, I naively thought that the transition from childhood to womanhood happens in such a way that one day you are just a woman and you automatically know everything. I mean, I thought that the kid that I was would one day just become, I don’t know… a creature in makeup and high heels and a dress. When I got into my teenage years and found that it happened to other people and it didn’t happen to me, I realized that it doesn’t happen automatically, it’s learned behaviors that I don’t want to learn because it’s not me. Even at the age of a student, I notice myself that, let’s say, when the girls in my group get married, I don’t understand at all. I’m not understanding today either, but today I don’t worry about it anymore. I don’t know what and what behaviors boys have to learn, but they probably have things they need to do to fit this stereotypical image of a man. One of them may be showing some competitiveness and aggression. I remember this thought even in my childhood, I kept saying that I am still a good girl, no one beats me at school and I don’t have to beat anyone, because that’s what I saw all the time. I think there are many people like me. It’s a heavy burden, and everyone needs to know they’re not alone — there are alternative ways to be a woman and a man, without boundaries.”
Although she did not live up to expectations, she says that she had complete freedom from her family, they never put anything on his head, they always tried to support her diverse interests. She thinks that he is very lucky in this regard.
“Probably, if the family suppressed that freedom, I would also be suppressed, because there would no longer be a space where I could realize this freedom, and then I wouldn’t dare to go into literature. I still had to overcome some conflicts with myself, because it was actually like going va-banque. Expectations for me were completely different, and when I was writing “Akumi”, I already had this tendency to be closed off, and still, if I had to go out, I was always afraid that someone I knew would meet me and ask me where you are now, what you are doing. And what should I say that I sit at home and write?! It’s just not serious. The family didn’t tell me anything, but the relatives were a little skeptical”.
Akumi, New Perception and Two Sexes
Vakho Kareli / Aprili Media
Nana Abuladze recalls that the idea of ”Akumi” appeared when she graduated from international relations and realized that she did not want to work in this direction. The period of crisis coincided with the letters of the later canonized saint, Saint Joseph the Hesychast, to his spiritual children, which became the charge that made her think about the plot of the new book.
“In one of the letters, he writes to the head of the nunnery, you deal with me like my brothers, because sex exists only for reproduction, which we refused, and the soul of a woman and a man does not exist – the soul is the soul. In one of the letters, it is also told how he overcame his sexual desire and still did not feel like a man , that is, he did not feel that he had a gender at all. I considered his approach interesting and somewhat revolutionary, because in the Orthodox tradition, gender does not exist only for reproduction, it is followed by an inevitable socio-cultural trap, women do not have the right to certain things in the church just because they are women. From that moment, the question was born – “What will happen if a person is born without sex and what will happen to them?”. I already knew that I had an idea for a novel, but I needed to know about the stages of fetal development, the effects of hormones, and many other issues.”
Researching the issue, thinking about the idea took a lot of time. Before she started writing the text, she got a job that she “didn’t like terribly”. During the period of work there, the contours of the work were further defined and he realized that he had to start writing.
“I left work, went to Kvareli and wrote the first twenty pages there, but I had no idea about the form. In the beginning, it was not like the book. The mother goes into labor, they go to the maternity hospital, and I got bored, I realized that there is nothing much to write, and if I got bored, the reader would die of boredom, so I changed the perspective and then the structure of the book started. When thinking about the organic combination of different story lines in the writing process, writers who used similar narration came to mind – Otar Chiladze, Faulkner or Tolkien”.
The inspiration for the idea of a new perception also came from reading. She was reading a collection of stories by Otar Jirkvalishvili, one of whose texts, “Lazarus”, is a postmodern interpretation of a biblical story.
“Then the impulse arose to write something on a biblical topic, but I got stuck there: I can’t do it, such writers write on a similar topic, it’s a lot of work and I just don’t have the talent. Then, when I plunged into feminist theory, I felt that this idea did not appeal to me. Gradually came the women from the Bible that I wanted to write about. I knew at the same time that this should be a collection of short stories, as far as the form is concerned, experiments, intertextuality, metafictional moments are even more radical in “New Perception” than in “Akum”. I thought it would be more difficult to accept than “Akumi”, but I knew I had to write it in order to reach a new height”.
She says that she wanted to read the Bible in a feminist way, which was motivated by a personal story – as a person of faith, she realized that there was a certain contradiction with her worldview – “like if you’re a believer, you have to be conservative, at least, and on the other hand, if you’re a feminist, you’re more I support a progressive vision” .
“They have asked me, how you think this text will be received by queers who have been expelled from the church, but it is necessary to distinguish faith and institution from each other. Then I also thought that all institutionalized religions are in a deep crisis and that spirituality and God should be sought elsewhere. Then I found a church that is not in such a crisis, but that is a separate story. Furthermore, I wanted to see the conflict that exists in culture because of societal norms as separate from God — that conflict does not exist in God. I wanted to somehow reconcile the two sides, to show that there really is no inconsistency, contradiction”, – this is how the five stories were processed, which will make the reader think about the change of norms in the modern world, the discrepancy between the individual and the norm, the turning of a good idea into absolute evil, or the breakdown of hierarchical systems.
As for “The Second Sex”, which studies the stories of two Georgian writers, Mikheil Javakhishvili and Mariam Garikuli, on the basis of gender, it was written as a master’s thesis and later edited for publication as a book. The research tries to see the differences that exist in the texts of male and female authors – this was facilitated by Nana Abuladze’s opinion of the feminist theorist, Hélène Cixous.
“Cixous is often criticized that there is no feminine and masculine writing. But when she says “feminine,” she doesn’t mean something related to gender. It implies writing directed against the dominant discourse, that is, the masculine discourse. Men started writing before women, and the literary conventions we know were created by men. Women come into a ready-made tradition that they had no part in creating and that is not tailored to them, not to what they have to say, not to their needs, and they have to somehow adapt to that tradition and adapt to that tradition. Cixous writes that texts that oppose the dominant discourse have common characteristics, such as, for example, a non-linear structure, a structure that cannot be grasped; Such as, for example, a conditional beginning and a conditional ending,” says Nana, noting that although Hélène Cixous is often thoroughly criticized, this idea greatly helped her in the writing process, although she also took into account that female writing can be completely different depending on the context.
According to Nana Abuladze’s observation, which was reflected in the “The Second Sex”, Mikheil Javakhishvili has a mathematically sound structure, which is not the case with Mariam Garikuli. In addition, the female author’s finals are always open, and in the case of a man, it is much clearer.
“Besides, when it comes to the voice of women in the text, it turned out that Mariam Garikuli is very democratic in this respect, she even gives secondary characters a perspective, even if they appear in a small passage, which Mikheil Javakhishvili does not do. For him, one leading perspective is important, usually a man’s.”
What Do You Need to Write?
Vakho Kareli / Aprili Media
Nana tells us that ever since she started writing, she has always been meticulous about editing, and that is the case to this day. She tries to do the main work himself and not leave extra work to the editor. She says, I was like that even in my childhood, I tried to make the text as linguistically correct as possible. Therefore, she had the same idea about the tiresome work of a writer and was used to it. She believes that discipline is one of the most important skills a writer needs.
“In any case, I belong to the category that if I work on something, I definitely do it every day. I may not have determined the number of pages, but at least something should be written”, she says and adds, in addition, knowledge of foreign languages is necessary for a Georgian writer, because many important works are not translated into our language and the number of people speaking Georgian is very small.
“After the 60’s, literature and literary studies became very close to each other. Many of the writers I have met in various programs are also literary researchers and teachers. In 2018, a camp for writers was held in Armenia, and a Turkish writer talked about how he wrote one of his novels, followed by fears and hesitations, and told us to avoid rationality when writing, don’t let your ego interfere, and save rationality for the editing stage. It helped me a lot to write my first book.”
She considers the knowledge you get by participating in various programs, reading, meeting new people to be the most important for the development of a writer, because, according to him, it helps open the way to new forms and expressions.
“It is possible, of course, that a writer is born whose first book will be very good, but I don’t think that their writings will develop without knowledge and he will be stuck in those themes and those forms. We have one such poet who is a very good poet, talented but unchanging, although he is looking for a new form, the content remains the same. It would have been very difficult for me without the knowledge, that’s why I enrolled in literature studies. If I had the happiness of discovery earlier and I was careful about this situation, I realized that everything that I could have discovered by myself, I had already discovered, and only my abilities were no longer there. As for this knowledge, it doesn’t hinder me, it doesn’t consciously enter the writing process, but it helps me a lot technically.”
While working on “Akumi”, she was able to stay alone, she devoted his time to the writing process, but she says that she has not had this privilege since then. At the same time, she was studying, writing his master’s thesis and working on his second book, but, as she notes, it is very important for her to be free from other worries in order to be able to write smoothly.
“I really need this solitude for the artistic text, and usually I lose the desire to communicate with people. “For the most part, I still have to deal with a lot of people, but I’m slowly learning to find a balance and remember that the main thing is the text I’m writing, and everything else is parallel to that, which I also have to deal with.”
As she says, in order to be able to write, she needs distance from events and a push that will give her an angle of vision, but the text can still reflect what is happening around her – “for example, one of my short stories, “I Wish I Turned into a Nightingale”, which was published in “Georgian Literature”, is on the topic of violence against women. At that time, cases of femicide were very common, but it did not occur to me to write about this issue. I was reading Ovid’s Metamorphoses, and I saw the whole text as a never-ending chronicle of violence against women. It turned out that I read Metamorphoses this way because of the context. I need something between me and reality in order to turn this reality into literature”.
Homophobic and Russian Laws that Threaten to Isolate the Country
Vakho Kareli / Aprili Media
Georgia’s 10th convocation parliament recently passed homophobic bills — calling into question the fight for equal rights for queer people and the fate of democracy in the country. Moreover, the new law envisages censorship, which restricts creative freedom. Perhaps, according to the new law, all three books published by Nana Abuladze will be subject to censorship.
“I never imagined that we would find ourselves in this reality. I naively thought that we had left censorship behind, that we had moved on to previous centuries. I thought how good it would be if I didn’t live in the 30’s of the last century, in the period of Stalin’s repressions. It turned out that now is the time, I was born in the 30’s. This whole situation is absurd. It causes anger for both the writer and the citizen, and I don’t know where to take this anger. This law completely contradicts the essence of literature. For me, literature has always been a way to manifest personal freedom, and if the law interferes with it and forbids it, I don’t know what could be worse than that?! But I still hope for a protest and I think that we will not find ourselves in that reality”.
According to Nana, the said censorship is dangerous in several directions — we will once again find ourselves in a situation where the literary process is artificially delayed; In addition, one of the functions of literature is to connect with people, experiences, and oneself through books.
“Before the Soviet Union, we were part of the Western literary space, and when Modernism was supposed to gain a foothold in us, it stopped suddenly and some misunderstanding was established in the form of social realism. For example, if we are talking about feminist literary studies now, we should have had it in the 60’s and we would have done it if it were not for the Soviet Union. No one knows the texts written by order of totalitarianism, it could not become an organic part of the history of literature”, says Nana, adding that one of the main functions of literature is to connect people. Maybe the book tells you that you are not alone and that there are people like you, or it allows you to see what you can’t say, and to limit that would rob people of a lot of happiness.
“If you no longer have such a helper as literature, it will be very difficult to fix your eyes on things and accept yourself for those people for whom literature played this role.”
We also asked Nana Abuladze about the Russian law, which threatens the country with complete isolation from the Western space. He says that due to our geopolitical situation, we cannot be a neutral country, and those who support this idea are backing away from the danger of assimilation with Russia.
“We have to choose one of the two spaces. In Europe , we will be able to bring our culture and learn a lot from them. The way will be opened for our young people to get a quality education and they will not have to go through these helpless bureaucratic procedures, which they have to do now and which are associated with very high financial costs. By the way, university applications also cost money if anyone doesn’t know, and it’s free for EU countries. Literally, we are part of the Western space, whether we like it or not. Even the influences that came in from the East came in only because we were conquered and the colonial story was pure. And even when we were part of the Russian Empire, our literature, that is, our writers, still tried to read and translate European literature in Russian translations”, – according to Nana, contacts with foreign publishers should be strengthened, because very few people read Georgian and Western By isolating ourselves from space, we will become very closed. In addition, she also says that in our country the writer is not given a space to work, and in the western culture there are often residency programs, which make it easier for the writer to work, and being a part of it is also good for the literary process.
“In addition, we ourselves will have to take care of the quality of education a little differently, and I think that it will be easier for us to carry out reforms in the education system together with Europe, which must be carried out in schools and universities as well. Another big problem is the gap between the university and the employment market. It’s not like that in Western universities – you know how what you study looks like in practice.”
Inspiration for a Future Book
“Basically, what I wrote before came from other texts, now what I write comes from my life, but maybe to some extent from the text,” Nana shares with us and says that after a painful personal experience, when she locked herself in herself and thought about what she should do. To make up for the experience he had, Virginie Despensts’ “King Kong Theory” fell into her hands.
“I realized what I had to do for my personal experience – I had to write it down. I was impressed that she turned such a painful experience into an intellectual product, and I thought that the real power of literature is that it frees you from things. I decided to look into the eyes of the story, stand up and write. Of course, there are formal and structural difficulties that I do not know how to overcome. I know that it should be a work of the horror genre,” she says, adding that she is not yet at the stage where she would be calm and know what will happen next. Moreover, the current processes in the country are added to this, which leaves no more space.
“The current situation in the country makes me think. I don’t know how I will find space during this period. To be honest, I expect a big fight, maybe even have time and I don’t have the mood to go into that world and write something. One thing I know for sure is that the time for this text was now and it had to be written now, I couldn’t put it off any longer. I started writing and time will tell the rest”.