Join us on Friday, the 24th of January at 5PM, for a discussion with Tbilisi born, UK raised writer Leo Vardiashvili on his debut novel ‘Hard by a Great Forest.’ The event will take place in the Pavilion Room at St Antony’s College and will be followed by a reception.

Leo Vardiashvili, an Observer best new novelist for 2024, came to the UK as a refugee aged twelve, after fleeing civil war-torn Georgia. Hard by a Great Forest is his much lauded first novel, published in 2024.

The novel’s narrator Saba, like Vardiashvili, fled Georgia as a child, and returns, two decades later, to a surreal, flooded Tbilisi with escaped zoo animals roaming the streets. Searching for his disappeared father and brother, Saba follows a trail of cryptic clues, determined to put the past to rest.