Böcker i Georgian Literature-serien

A phantasmagorical mixture of religious mysticism and eroticism, bound up with the mythic origins of civilization, and taking in everything from shamanic art to Bach's "Art of the Fugue."

A bevy of mediocre writers are invited to a seminar aboard a specially chartered train, and this novel tracks their progress across Europe: bitter, bickering, and self-absorbed. Aboard this Literature Express is a Georgian author whose love for the wife of his own Polish translator seems as doomed as his hopes for international success; worse still, it seems all the novelists congregated on The Literature Express intend to write their next books about their time on the train... Can our Georgian author compete? Is there any hope for contemporary literature, or, barring that, at least his own little love affair? "The Literature Express" is a riotous parable about the state of literary culture, the European Union, and our own petty ambitions--be they professional or amorous.

This is, in brief, the story of a swindler, a Georgian Felix Krull, or perhaps a cynical Don Quixote, named Kvachi Kvachantiradze: womanizer, cheat, perpetrator of insurance fraud, bank-robber, associate of Rasputin, filmmaker, revolutionary, and pimp. Though originally denounced as pornographic, Kvachi's tale is one of the great classics of twentieth-century Georgian literature--and a hilarious romp to boot.

Short stories about men and women, love and hate, sex and disappointment, cynicism and hope--perhaps unique in that none of the stories reveal the time or place in they occur: the world is too small now for it to matter. A disillusioned woman, the narrator doesn't mince words about the imperfection of her life, her relationships, her prospects; yet what might in other hands seem discouraging is presented with such humor the reader can't help but feel there may yet be hope... for most of us.