Keeping Georgian poets alive! Blood transfusion for Georgian literature

A Georgian poet and his translator respond to my Podcast on Georgian Poetry …

Brilliant! Fascinating! … the praise received for a Podcast on Georgian Poetry. Georgian poet Tamar Zhghenti and I collaborated on a Podcast to review three contemporary poetry collections by poets from the country of Georgia.

In the 27-minute podcast TRIPLE TREAT BOOK CHAT, our third episode,  Georgian Poetry, aired on 28 June 2024, which included an author bio and a short poem from each collection. Tamar and I chose poetry collections by Diana Anphimiadi, Nika Jorjaneli, and Paata Shamugia. 

A poet – and translator – responded.  

Paata Shamugia, author of the poetry collection, Schizo-National Anthems, wrote in an email to Tamar:

“What a dialogue! Many thanks to you and Martina. Her translation of my poem is brilliant. I think the Georgian literary world needs such podcasts like we need the air we breathe.”

Like blood transfusion.

Bachana Chabradze translated Paata Shamugia’s Schizo-National Anthems and Nika Jorjaneli’s Waiting for Summer poetry anthology from the Georgian language into French. It was these French versions that I used to translate some poems for the Podcast into English, because I am now living in Paris and learning French, having lived in Tbilisi, Georgia, for more than ten years. Diana Anphimiadi’s collection Why I No Longer Write Poems was already translated into English.

Bachana came to France from Georgia in 1998 to take courses in multimedia and extended his studies at the University of Nantes. He moved to Paris for work, but his passion is translation. He has already translated the works of more than 70 authors from Georgian to French and French to Georgian.

He writes that “very little is definite about the art of translation. There are many doubts and uncertainties here. Translators ‘trade’ at every step … Sometimes, the form of expression is more important than the substance of the content. Therefore, the translator can, especially in poetry, refuse to translate literally and save the sound effect, tempo, or rhyme.”

Bachana Chabradze knew of our intention to review the two poetry collections by Paata Shamugia and Nika Jorjaneli. In his native Georgian language, Bachana wrote a post praising the merits and importance of our Podcast:

“Huge thanks to Martina and Tamar for this long-awaited, fascinating podcast. I want to express my gratitude to the wonderful Martina Nicolls for popularizing brilliant Georgian writers and translators. As a fellow translator, I also want to express my admiration for her outstanding work in translating Nika Jorjaneli’s and Paata Shamugia’s poems.”

Listen to the Podcast.