Zaza Burchuladz’s novel is set in Tbilisi in August 2008 during the Russian-Georgian conflict. Even though there is not a single combat scene in the novel, the war is nowhere and yet everywhere. The war is raging in the background of the country, Russian fighter planes are thundering overhead, atrocities are being committed and yet in Tbilisi there is no difference between the real and the fake, for some, the falling bombs cause no more impact than a slight ripple moving through the purified water of their swimming pools, or the rattling of a spoon in their cappuccino cups. Adibas is a drastic satire of urban Bohemia in a globalised world, filtered through the bleary and cynical mind of Shako - a journalist famed for his appearance in Georgian Pepsi ads - describing the progressive falsification of his life, invaded by consumer goods, consumer sex, and consumer carnage. The author using his extraordinary writing skills creates certain contrasts of sex and war - describing one with extreme naturalism and the second with surrealistic approach and thus making them in fact two main heroes of his novel. According to some critics key message of Adibas - extends well beyond the boarder of Georgia and anatomizes the Western world’s ongoing “feast in a time of plague.” 


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Translated into English by Guram Sanikidze