Stories I Stole - Softcover

Steavenson's unusual title betrays the honesty which distinguishes her book. Leaving Time magazine for Tblisi is a strange career move, but Steavenson does not try to dress it up with false excuses; instead, revealing a world of poverty intertwined with drunken camaraderie and undiluted joyousness, her choice explains itself through her experiences. While her anecdotes are episodic, it becomes clear that this randomness is essential to life in Tblisi, where best friends may shoot each other, the electricity supply is as predictable as the political situation, and a person's humanity is judged by their ability to drink toasts into the morning--and survive.

With her training as a reporter, Steavenson's sentences are often curt, and she can describe places with long lists that mask their emotional atmosphere. However, this is more than compensated for by her honesty, the stark beauty of her evocations of landscape, and the sense that she has really penetrated the surface of Georgia. She writes with obvious love of this messed-up place and its people, and this is enough: "Georgia," she writes, "would make a fool out of anyone with the temerity of prediction. The best we can do is to respect our family, love our friends, open a bottle of wine, drink it, and then open another one."--Toby Green

'A young Kapuscinski with a literary future ahead of her...an immensely talented writer' Neal Ascherson, Observer

'A joyous, perceptive and haunting debut which fizzes - and sears - like rough new wine' Rory MacLean, Sunday Times

'Lyrical, poetic and sassy by turns; when she retells Georgian people's stories, you hear real voices' Vanora Bennett, The Times

'I couldn't possibly over praise the beautiful writing' Sunday Tribune

'A sparkling, poetical hymn to the most romantic and dangerous land in the world.' Simon Sebag-Montefiore, author of Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin

'Lively, atmospheric, honest, perceptive; a terrific account of Georgia's post-Soviet mess from a fresh and intelligent new writer'