Lasha Bugadze © Writers’ House of Georgia

Lasha Bugadze [ Georgia ]

Lasha Bugadze, born in Tbilisi on 16 November 1977. He graduated from I. Nikoladze Art College and Shota Rustaveli Theatre and Film Georgian State University, the Faculty of Drama and Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, the Faculty of Art.

Lasha Bugadze is a cartoonist, fiction writer, playwright and newspaper columnist, and a host of book programmes on Georgian TV and radio.

Bugadze is the author of numerous novels and of plays that have been performed in many European cities. His works have been translated into French and English. Bugadze focuses his critical and ironic attention on inter-generational relationships and describes situations in which people fall victim to their prejudices, rigid ideas or stereotypes.

His most recent novel, A Small Country (2017), won the Saba, IliaUni and Writers’ House Litera prizes – all for best novel of the year in 2018.

In his early 20’s Bugadze’s name was spread all over the country after the reading of his short story The First Russian at the Georgian Parliament. As it described the failure of the first sexual experience of a Georgian saint, a flood of threats were directed towards the author from the church and society. Religious leaders summoned him to the residence of the Patriarch and told him that he would be excommunicated from the Georgian Orthodox Church and rejected by the public if he did not apologize publically for his work. From time to time he received anonymous death threats. Many politicians in the Parliament demanded to activate censorship in Georgia to avoid similar publications.

The incident greatly defined the themes of L. Bugadze’s works: censorship, Soviet inertia in the post-Soviet states, adultery, and the flaws of Georgian mentality are the main topics of the writer who sustains a constant sense of humor within the tragedy.

Lasha won the International BBC Playwriting Competition in 2011 for The Navigator, and his play The President Has Come to See You was performed at London’s Royal Court Theatre in 2013.

Bibliography

Novels

Last Bell– Sulakauri Publising (2004)

Gold Era– Sulakauri Publising (2006)

Caricaturist– Sulakauri Publising (2008)

The Literature Express– Sulakauri Publising (2009)

“LUCRECIA515” – Sulakauri Publising (2013)

A Small Country – Sulakauri Publising (2017)

Auditorium – Sulakauri Publishing (2018)

Short Stories

Box (1998)

The Murder of a Century (Theatrical sketches, 2000)

The Third Floor (2003)

Collections of Plays

25 Small Plays (2005)

While the Main Character was Sleeping (2006)

Mothball (2007)

Otar and Other Plays (2008)

Head (2010)

Moral (2020) Intelekti Publishing