Nana Ekvtimishvili, born in 1978 in Tbilisi, is a Georgian writer and director. Her teenage years were marked by turbulent political events and demonstrations, which left their mark on her work. With her novel Pears Field, she was shortlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize. She won the Heart of Sarajevo Award for Best Film for her film In Bloom .
Lela knows two things – that her professor must die and that she must start a new life, away from the pear fields.
On the outskirts of Tbilisi, there is a boarding school for children with intellectual disabilities, or, as the locals call it, the School for Idiots. The boarding school's residents are abandoned by their parents, neglected, and often carry unimaginable traumas with them. The main protagonist of the novel is eighteen-year-old Lela, old enough to leave freely and start a new life. While she is planning her future, Irakli, a boy she has become particularly attached to, is given the chance to leave and grow up in a well-off family, far from the depressing Tbilisi. The brave Lela is determined to help Irakli seize this chance at all costs, but will she succeed?
Brilliantly written, The Pears Field is a poignant, yet at the same time a novel that awakens hope in goodness and true friendship that breaks down boundaries.
"Ekvtimishvili is an author who has the ability to reveal the big in the small and to give a voice to those who are denied it. The Pear Field is a powerful portrait of young people fighting for each other in the cruel world of adults."
Meike Ziervogel
Translated from English by Leyla Dzhanko