Stories I Stole from Georgia

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Grove Press, 2002 - 277 pages
After working for Time magazine in London, Wendell Steavenson spent two years in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. Stories I Stole captures the exuberance of a fledgling nation of local despots, mountain tribes, blood feuds, and an unlimited flow of red wine. From President Shevardnadze's rigged elections to horse races high in the mountains; from the eerie roadside artifacts of the Soviet era to the farcical power outages in the dead of winter, here is Georgia: weird, invigorating, and still coming to grips with the legacy of its most famous son, Joseph Stalin. Far more than a travel book, this is a scintillating menagerie of true stories peopled by vivid -- and sometimes insane -- characters. In the beach resort of Sukhumi, once the destination of every fashionable Russian but now wrecked by civil war, Wendell plays hangman with a secret policeman. In the capital, Tbilisi -- ensconced in Levan's Magic Room or lounging in the steam baths -- she hears about the latest duel or kidnapping. In Khevsureti, the meadows are dotted with blue-painted beehives and yellow flowers, while just over the border there is war in Chechnya. Stories I Stole is a candid, engaging, and quietly lyrical book about a land and its people. "Haunting, Chekovian ... a practiced and very gifted writer; a young Kapuscinski with a literary future ahead of her." -- Neal Ascherson, The Observer (U.K.) "[An] accomplished narrative -- part travelogue, part love story ... when [Steavenson] retells Georgian people's stories, you hear real voices." -- Vanora Bennett, The Times (London) "A sparkling, poetical hymn to the most romantic and dangerous land in the world." -- Simon Sebag-Montefiore, author of Prince ofPrinces: The Life of Potemkin

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