TAVERN ENCOUNTERS

Sunday 28 February – 16.00 – 16.45

Watch video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsJpmVH8FEs&t=4s

FREE online events.

‘Georgian dance is based on masculinity – there is no room for weakness,’ an instructor shouts in Levan Akin’s Cannes film-festival hit, And Then We Danced. The international success of that 2019 feature, and of other Georgian films such as the documentary When the Earth Seemed to be Light, has highlighted conflicting attitudes in Georgia towards masculinity and Pride.

Novelist, playwright and activist Davit Gabunia first became famous at 22 by translating Harry Potter into Georgian (followed by Shakespeare and Ibsen). His debut novel Falling Apart tells the story of a Georgian family from shifting perspectives. As an unemployed father-of-two becomes obsessed with the private life of a new neighbour, photographing the man’s secret sexual encounters with an older male politician, he neglects his own marriage and courts disaster. This dark exploration of voyeurism became a Georgian bestseller.

Davit is joined in the fantastic tavern by writer and journalist Mark Gevisser in Cape Town, author of The Pink Line: The World’s Queer Frontiers.

You can read an extract from Davit Gabunia’s novel Falling Apart, translated by Adham Smart, on Words Without Borders.

Please note: all timings are GMT