The Oxford Georgian Translation Project
About my work translating fiction from Georgian into English, and links to my work
I took up Georgian lessons as an extra-curricular activity alongside my studies at Oxford University (2014-2018). I have been a member of the Oxford Georgian Translation Project since its inception. Under the tutelage of Lia Chokoshvili we have translated classic works of Georgian literature into English.
Our first book, Unlocking the Door, was published in 2017. This brings together short stories and plays by eminent Georgian writers of the 20th century and the present day.
Here is one of the stories I translated: ‘Kitesa’, by Guram Rcheulishvili:
Kitesa was born during the reign of the third from last king. He grew
up without any clothes on his back. When he reached the age of seven,
they clothed him in rags. The soles of his feet were tough. His father
gave him a spade with a broken handle and set him to work digging
furrows. He would cut his callused feet on the head of the spade, then
they would heal and harden.
Our second book, Stories from Saba: Selected Fables from the Book of Wisdom and Lies, is a collection of fables written by the scholar Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani in the 17th century.
https://rees.web.ox.ac.uk/stories-saba-selected-fables-book-wisdom-and-lies
Our third book, Human Sadness, is due out next year. This is the culmination of two years’ work translating Goderdzi Chokheli’s remarkable novel Adamianta sevda and five of his short stories. Chokheli, for whom “every character is a story”, invites us into a world which is both real and unreal, where harsh mountain traditions intermingle with the individual worries of the villagers who inhabit it. The story is narrated by five different voices, each of which was translated by a different translator in the project in order to preserve its individuality.
You can read what I have to say about it here:
“Are you really not in love?” asked Gamikhardai.
“No, I’m not, but even if I were, why should love be a worry?”
“Why not? Love is the greatest worry.”
“Are you in love then?”
“I was.”
“Go on.”
“When she was walking along the road one day, some bandits were lying in wait and they attacked her. She didn’t say anything for quite a while. One day she was sitting and she looked up at me without making a sound. I asked her what was wrong. She didn’t say anything. Then she came up to me and kissed me on the knees. I reached down and hugged her, but she pulled herself from my arms and went away. She went away and… that’s all really… she went away. She threw herself into the churning waters of the Aragvi. And so then I turned to collecting people’s worries. Any worry at all in the world, I have to collect it; and then go to God.”
Tears started welling in Gamikhardai’s eyes and so that Chaghi would not notice he turned around, went over to Salome, and wrote down the number of the worry in his notebook.
My translations of two short stories by Goderdzi Chokheli will appear in print in a collection in 2025.
You can watch my appearance in a Georgian news report about our project:
ოქსფორდის უნივერსიტეტში ორ ათეულ წელზე მეტია ქართულ ენასა და ლიტერატურას ასწავლიან | Rustavi2
For more information about the Oxford Georgian Translation Project, and for updates about our work, click here:
https://rees.web.ox.ac.uk/georgian-language-students-and-translation-projects#tab-3257201
We also have a Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/The-Oxford-Georgian-Translation-Project-105528865387515