Guram Petriashvili’s book contains about thirty tales. Each story has something in common: a small town where every single strange event in the book has taken place. At first sight, there is nothing unfamiliar in these tales: birds live with people in the town and there are frequent winds; many towns have both a zoo and a fountain; the streets are walked by violinists and dreamers, such as a man who never laughs and a lover of rain, not to mention a painter and a hatter. But this town is unique, for little humans live in the trees with birds, a pensive tiny elephant walks the streets and a hippopotamus has escaped from a dream. Every single being – human, animal, plant and fountain – has its own soul, thought, dream, feeling and adventure. For more than twenty years Guram Petriashvili has been writing fairy stories about a small town where strange stories and miraculous events happen. This book is a collection of amazing stories. As the writer himself writes, ‘Tales of a Small Town is for everybody in whom a child’s heart still beats and yet you won’t find in this book fairy stories in the classic sense: you will find stranger and rather different stories. Of course, there are no monsters or witches here. Nor is there a magician or a good fairy, dragons and wonderful beauties, nor princes and princesses, for example… Nothing of that kind, or the opposite: just good stories which, when you’ve read them, will make you good, generous, kind and, above all, better. Who are the heroes? An actor who fulfils children’s dreams and a little dinosaur who has fallen in love with the sun and found the way to get to it; also a hippopotamus, which has had an interesting dream and finds its dream coming true. Here is the story of an obstinate man and a melancholy clown; there is another man who tames the wind, and a ballerina who is followed into the street by the theatre lights. A joyful painter walks about the town and a man who never smiles, a lover of rain and a man who walks on his hands, and all of them, absolutely all, have a lot to tell, to entertain little children with. After reading these fairy stories you will see a lot of things differently, you will feel more warmth and kindness, and you will believe that ‘love really can do anything.’

‘With his very deep subtext this storyteller talks to us about general problems of spirituality – those that the Georgian reader faces thanks to a totalitarian ideology, and those which he faces today in a period when everyday values are being reassessed.’

M. Tsiklauri, poet, Newspaper 24 Hours

EXTRACT
Translated into English by Eka Machitidze

The Dwarves of the Giant Tree
There was a garden in a small town and people used to gather there in the evenings. There were too many park amusements for kids in the garden: roundabouts and swings and distorting mirrors and what not. Grown-ups enjoyed walking in the alleys.
There was a giant tree at the place where all the alleys of the garden gathered. The tree was inhabited by little dwarves who were as light as feathers. They used to put their hands under their heads and lie on the broad leaves every single day, watching the birds while they were soaring in the air.
In the evening the dwarves would ring a silver bell and the kids would gaily run from the park amusements to the tree.
They’d stand under the tree and stare at its lowest branch.
Then one of the dwarves would come out on the branch, they did it in turns, smile to the kids and think how to introduce his story. All the dwarves could walk upside down, sing, dance and jump from a branch to another…
But the most important thing was that the dwarves knew a great many interesting stories.
And the kids used to listen to the dwarves till midnight.
None of the mothers worried about their children – the mothers knew where the kids were.
Each kid stood under the tree with his breath bated and a smile played on his face.
Then they went home where they smiled even when they were asleep…
Then the summer would be over.
The leaves would turn yellow and as soon as the first autumn wind blew, all the leaves would tear off the tree and rise into the air together with the dwarves who watched the birds just to master flying…
And dwarves would stand on the hovering leaves with their hands stretched out and fly hither and thither. (See PDF)




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