Leo Vardiashvili

Hard by a Great Forest

*LONGLISTED FOR THE ONDAATJE PRIZE 2025* * AN OBSERVER BEST NEW NOVELIST FOR 2024 * * SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILBUR SMITH ADVENTURE WRITING PRIZE 2024 * ‘A spellbinding achievement’ FINANCIAL TIMES ‘Poignant and often painfully comic’ OBSERVER ‘I gasped, laughed, and wept my way through it’ KHALED HOSSEINI Saba’s father is missing, and the trail leads back to Tbilisi, Georgia. Arriving in a city he has not seen for more than two decades, where escaped zoo animals prowl the streets and the voices of those left behind beckon him along a path of cryptic clues, Saba embarks on a quest that will lead him into the heart of a lost homeland. This is a rare, searching tale of home, memory and sacrifice – of one family’s mission to rescue one another, and put the past to rest. ‘Hugely impressive’ NEW EUROPEAN ‘Novels like this might help light the way’ GUARDIAN 'At once a puzzle hunt and an affecting meditation on exile' ECONOMIST