Muse Award winner gets honour

Tbilisi: In an impressive event the winners of the literary competition “Muse” were honoured by the organisers. This award conferring ceremony was held at the writer’s house.

It is to be specifically mentioned that the Muse Award was founded by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth of Georgia. Now winners of the literary competition “Muse” have been announced. Almost 82 contestants fought for the prestigious prize.

The event for awarding the “Muse” competition winner was attended by Georgian Minister of Culture, Sports and Youth Tea Tsulukiani, along with Director of the Writers’ House Ketevan Dumbadze, Representative of Georgia in the Council of Europe, Tamar Taliashvili and the representatives of the literary sphere and other invited guests.

The winners of the nominations have been announced. The list of winners is as follows:

1. The best novel of the year -Levan Beridze, “As You Say”.

2. The best prose collection of the year –Kakhaber Melitauri, “Four Stories”.

3. The best poetry collection of the year – Manana Chitishvili’s “Chosen”.

4. The best documentary prose/essay of the year – Konstantine Gamsakhurdia, “For Homeland and Nation-State – Biographical Portrait of Zviad Gamsakhurdiya”.

5. The best debut of the year – Luka Kaulashvili, “For you and about you”; Konstantine Chankotadze, “Illusional reality”.

6. The best translation of the year – Irma Shiolashvili, Reiner Maria Rilke, “Evening is my book”; Rusudan Ghvinefadze, Franz Kafka, “Diaries”.

7. The best criticism/review of the year – Tamar Gelitashvili, “Facing artistic creatures”.

8. The best play/staging of the year – Koba Tshakaya, “Three plays on different stories”.

9. Contribution to literature development – Temur Chalabashvili.

Surprisingly, In the nominations for – “Best Book Design” and “Best Innovative Literary Project of the Year” – no winners were selected.

At the same time the winners were given a prize and a cash prize which has been created in the name of the sculptor Merab Berdzenishvili’s “Muse”.

The amount of the award was 5000 GEL.A video clip was also prepared for the awards ceremony, for which the music was created by composer Zaza Marjanishvili was also played.

The invited guests of the ceremony listened to the works performed by guitarist Giorgi Pkhaladze before the ceremony began. During the event, Dini Virsaladze, Giorgi Melikishvili and David Japaridze gave a thrilling performance in front of the audience.

It is worth mentioning that the literary award, named “The Best of the Year”, was established by the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Youth of Georgia, was established in the year of 2021. However, considering the success of the competition and the great interest the ministry has updated the terms, and conditions of the award and more categories for the award were created.

As per the schedule the winners of the competition will be announced annually in September. Its main goal is to promote the development of Georgian literature, support the publishing sector in the country, encourage the creative activities of artists, popularise Georgian authors and expose new, talented authors.

Social media users also appreciated the winner. One user, namely Nino Khoperia, commented that, “Those who deserve it will be rewarded”. Another use Daivd Robakidze, while commenting wrote that “I was especially pleased with the attention shown to Temur Chalabashvili”