Culture | Debut fiction

A gripping, genre-bending novel explores Georgia’s troubled history

“Hard by a Great Forest” is at once a puzzle hunt and an affecting meditation on exile

Smoke escapes from the windows of the Tbilisi Hotel after it was burned and partially destroyed during civil war in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.
Photograph: Getty Images

In 1992 Saba Sulidze-Donauri fled civil war in his native Georgia with his brother, Sandro, and father, Irakli, to find safety in London. Almost two decades later, Irakli returns to his home country and subsequently disappears. In his last email to his sons, he reveals that people are out to get him. “I left a trail I can’t erase,” he writes. “Do not follow it.” Heedless of his father’s warning, Sandro sets off in pursuit; his communications also promptly cease. Saba has no choice but to fly out to Georgia to track down his missing family members.

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