Otar Chiladze

ოთარ ჭილაძე Otar Chiladze
Born	March 20, 1933 Sighnaghi, Soviet Union
Died	October 1, 2009 Tbilisi, Georgia
Occupation	writer, novelist,poet
Language	Georgian
Nationality	Georgian
Genre	Historical fiction, Poetry, Philosophical fiction
Subject	History, Bible
Literary movement	Magic realism, Postmodernism
Notable works	A Man Was Going Down the Road
Relatives	Tamaz Chiladze (Brother)

Otar Chiladze (Georgian: ოთარ ჭილაძე) (March 20, 1933 — October 1, 2009) was a Georgian writer who played a prominent role in the resurrection of the Georgian prose in the post-Joseph Stalin era. His novels characteristically fuse Sumerian and Hellenic mythology with the predicaments of a modern Georgian intellectual.

Chiladze was born in Sighnaghi, a town in Kakheti, the easternmost province of then-Soviet Georgia. He graduated from the Tbilisi State University with a degree in journalism in 1956. His works, primary poetry, first appeared in the 1950s. At the same time, Chiladze engaged in literary journalism, working for leading magazines in Tbilisi. He gained popularity with his series of lengthy, atmospheric novels, such as A Man Was Going Down the Road (1972–3), "Everyone That Findeth Me" (1976), "Avelum" (1995), and others. He was a chief editor of the literary magazine Mnatobi since 1997. Chiladze also published several collections of poems and plays. He was awarded Shota Rustaveli Prize in 1983 and State Prize of Georgia in 1993.

Chiladze died after a long illness in October 2009 and was buried at the Mtatsminda Pantheon in Tbilisi, where some of the most prominent writers, artists, scholars, and national heroes of Georgia are buried. His elder brother Tamaz Chiladze is also a writer.

Otar Chiladze's novels characteristically fuse Sumerian and Hellenic mythology with the predicaments of a modern Georgian intellectual. He gained popularity with his series of lengthy, atmospheric novels, such as A Man Was Going Down the Road (1972-3), Everyone That Findeth Me (1976), Avelum (1995), and others. Otar Chiladze who became a Georgian classic author during his lifetime was awarded some Highest State Prizes of Georgia and in 1998 was nominated for the Nobel Prize along with five other writers. His works are translated into English, Russian , Armeinan , Estonian , Serbian, French, Danish, German, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Czech, Slovakian and Spanish. Otar Chiladze’s novels A Man Was Going Down the Road and Avelum translated by Donald Rayfield were published in the United Kingdom in 2012 and 2013.

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