In the dusk of the 18th century. September 2012 rushes to a woman through the streets of Tbilisi. You pay no attention to the traffic, bustling on several highways in the direction of the Zoo. Shortly before the parliamentary election, the mood in Georgia is heated. The television interrupted its program and reported for the first time, of torture in the prisons. It always comes back to spontaneous, sometimes violent demonstrations against the government. The agitated Tina has no views. Senseless she runs through the city, past a huge white Monument and several loops of a viaduct.

More than a hundred pages of the 36-year-old Davit Gabunia, which is considered the most important younger playwright of Georgia, in his riveting debut novel, “colors of the night” before he leaves Tina to come up with their view of things word. For the working wife and mother of two changed by an experience on the 18. August life, but the author focuses on the perspective of her husband Zurab. For him, the day becomes a turning point.

“colors of the night” has developed into a veritable political Thriller

The lethargic 31-Year-old has Recently lost his job and is therefore dedicated to the more devoted of the two small sons. But now it’s summer vacation and the children stay with the grandmother in the country. In order not to disturb Tina, in this extremely hot summer, a striking complete a lot of Overtime, sleeps Zurab in the living room.

On 18. August, he’s watching from the Sofa, and into the opposite house is an attractive young man moves in, has a red Alfa Romeo. On privacy, the new tenant, seems to be of no value, because he has no curtains, yet he clears behind thin curtains, the light, when it receives changing men to the Rendezvous. If he feels that he is being watched from the dark living room? Zurab is repelled by this entirely different way of life and fascinated at the same time and starts, like to the movies wild the neighbors called Schotiko. It is a multi-faceted game of rejection and attraction develops. It is “full of it”, to spy on strangers, as it is formulated by the Swiss, Rachel Gratz field in your unfortunately quite clumsy Translation? She regularly writes “I” instead of “have” or “I” for “he is superior to me” (instead of “I’m tired of it”). This creates a strange, quirky impression of orality. The voltage of this constructed, refined, multi-perspective novel unfolds, I fortunately did not crash. Because as Zurab television in a Minister Schotikos main lover detects and decides to make his secret Knowledge of money, “colors of the night”, became a veritable political Thriller.

More about

longing for the country of Georgia Ode to the kolchische Pimpernuss

Gregor Dotzauer

Davit Gabunia: colors of the night. Roman. From the Georgian by Rachel Gratzfeld. Rowohlt Berlin In 2018. 192 pages, 20 €.