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Hard by a Great Forest: A Novel Audiobook
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"This novel annihilated me. I gasped, laughed, and wept my way through it... Left my heart bruised and battered and aching for more." —Khaled Hosseini, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Kite Runner
“Blows open the heart of the past. It's a mystery, it's a picaresque, it's a comedy, and it's an authentic song of belonging and unbelonging. Tender and raw and funny.” —Colum McCann, National Book Award winning author of Let the Great World Spin
"Propulsive, funny, and profound."—Elif Batuman, Pulitzer Prize finalist and bestselling author of The Idiot
“Astonishingly crafted with history, candor, beauty, grief and just a little magic. A book like no other, from an imagination like no other.” —Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Less Is Lost
Amid rubble and rebuilding in a former Soviet land, one family must rescue one another and put the past to rest: a stirring novel about what happens after the fighting is over
Saba is just a child when he flees the fighting in the former Soviet Republic of Georgia with his older brother, Sandro, and father, Irakli, for asylum in England. Two decades later, all three men are struggling to make peace with the past, haunted by the places and people they left behind.
When Irakli decides to return to Georgia, pulled back by memories of a lost wife and a decaying but still beautiful homeland, Saba and Sandro wait eagerly for news. But within weeks of his arrival, Irakli disappears, and the final message they receive from him causes a mystery to unfold before them: “I left a trail I can’t erase. Do not follow it.”
In a journey that will lead him to the very heart of a conflict that has marred generations and fractured his own family, Saba must retrace his father’s footsteps to discover what remains of their homeland and its people. By turns savage and tender, compassionate and harrowing, Hard by a Great Forest is a powerful and ultimately hopeful novel about the individual and collective trauma of war, and the indomitable spirit of a people determined not only to survive, but to remember those who did not.
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"“This novel blows open the heart of the past. It's a mystery, it's a picaresque, it's a comedy, and it's an authentic song of belonging and unbelonging. Tender and raw and funny, it's a rattling good read about the loss of home and the primacy of story-telling. By turns political and philosophical, it introduces a fine new voice in contemporary fiction."
— Colum McCann, National Book Award winning author of Let the Great World Spin
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This novel annihilated me. I gasped, laughed, and wept my way through it. Rich with irony and animated with astonishing humanity, this tale of a young Georgian refugee’s odyssey into his birthplace to rescue family left my heart bruised and battered and aching for more.
— Khaled Hosseini, author of #1 New York Times bestseller The Kite Runner -
"A wildly charming debut—propulsive, funny, and profound.
— Elif Batuman, Pulitzer Prize finalist and bestselling author of The Idiot -
“Astonishingly crafted with history, candor, beauty, grief and just a little magic. A book like no other, from an imagination like no other. Vardiashvili has written a triumph.
— Andrew Sean Greer, Pulitzer Prize winning author of Less Is Lost -
“Profoundly moving and rich with humor and heartbreak, Hard by a Great Forest mesmerized me from the very first page. It will capture your heart.
— Jean Kwok, New York Times bestselling author of Girl in Translation -
"An unforgettable aria to a lost homeland, full of anger, sorrow, and longing.
— Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW -
"[A] spectacular debut. . .The tense plot ups the ante from one narrow escape to the next, and Vardiashvili layers his seamless blend of genres (police thriller, fairy tale quest, coming-of-age story) with lush depictions of Georgia’s landscape, culture, and resilient people. This will leave readers breathless.
— Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW -
"An unforgettable aria to a lost homeland, full of anger, sorrow, and longing.
— Kirkus, STARRED REVIEW -
“Heartrending, beautifully crafted. . .Laced with humor and insights similar to those of Gary Shteyngart and Jonathan Safran Foer, this is a sweeping, ambitious, and almost unbelievably assured debut. Exploring the long shadow of trauma cast by any war, Vardiashvili's novel pummels the reader with an emotional force that few can match.
— Booklist, STARRED REVIEW -
[A] spectacular debut. . .The tense plot ups the ante from one narrow escape to the next, and Vardiashvili layers his seamless blend of genres (police thriller, fairy tale quest, coming-of-age story) with lush depictions of Georgia’s landscape, culture, and resilient people. This will leave readers breathless.
— Publishers Weekly, STARRED REVIEW
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