Born in 1969, in Tbilisi Irakli Kakabadzeis a Georgian writer, performance artist, peace and human rights activist. In his early youth (1987–1990) he was actively involved in the anti-Soviet dissident movement and participated in the National Liberation movement of Georgia. In 1990, he was elected to the National Forum of Georgia, which included the nine strongest political parties there. Kakabadze was not eligible to run due to his age, but he helped the liberation movement to win October 1990 elections by a wide margin. After the election of ZviadGamsakhurdia as Georgia's President, Kakabadze quit his political activities and dedicated himself to literature and arts. He moved to the United States in 1990 and then adopted a bilingual writing style. Kakabadze also works in the field of peace studies and conflict resolution. He has been a practitioner of nonviolent social change and conflict resolution for nearly two decades. He was an active participant of peaceful revolution 2003.During his work as peace and human rights activist in 1988-2010, Kakabadze was arrested and assaulted a number of times by the Soviet and Georgian police. Irakli Kakabadze was an Editor-in-Chief of the bi-lingual (Georgian-English) literary-social science magazine “Peace Times” in 2001-2004 in Tbilisi, Georgia. This is where he started to explore multi-lingual and multi-discourse style of writing. The magazine combined the discourse of creative multi-media art with multi-disciplinary peace science. It was at this journal that Kakabadze started to publish Georgian, Russian, English and German texts. Polyphonic discourse as a method originates from traditional Georgian folk music and from the writings of Russian literary scientist Mikhail Bakhtin. Together with his colleague Zurab Rtveliashvili, Kakabadze has used this technique to bring it to writing and performance – articulating different narratives at the same time. In their joint works “The Georgian Humanist Manifesto of 21st Century” (2005) and “Contemporary Dada Manifesto” (2009) they have shown two distinctly different narratives coexisting in the same performance while not breaking up it harmony. A decentralized style of performance and artistic delivery became a signature style of these artists. Kakabadze has performed his polyphonic style of poetry at the Frankfurt Book Fair (2009) and “Free the Word” in London (2010). At the 2010 “PEN World Voices” Festival in New York Kakabadze performed Polyphonic Discourse at the Cabaret Show that featured the author with Natalie Merchant, Ben Okri and Ariel Dorfman.

BIBLIOGRAPHY  

• Land of Flowers / Liberation Theology, in English & Georgian, Vista-Periodista, 2010
• Candidate Jokola, in Georgian Siesta 2005, in English Vista-Periodista, 2010
• Compassionata, Siesta, 2004
• Allegro or the Chronicle of One Year, Publishing House Azri, 2002 
• Times Square - Circle of the Time, Publishing House Azri, 1998     

PRIZES AND AWARDS

• Oxfam/NovibPEN Freedom of Expression Prize 2009 
• Lilian Hellman/Hammett grant from Human Rights Watch 2007 

In case of using the information, please, indicate the source.