Lia Likokeli was born in 1986. She graduated Theatre and Film University film directing department. In 2008-2013 She worked at Dusheti People’s theatre as a stage director. Her debut poetry collection Laughter of Devi’s Wife was published in 2013 and was awarded with the SABA award for the best literary debut of the year in 2014. Likokeli has won the literary competition Tsero twice for her short stories in 2014 and 2015; she is the winner of Tsinandali Award for young authors for her poetry in 2016.
Her poems are translated into Swedish, English, German and Russian languages.
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(excerpt)
I hated my grandfather and wanted him to die.
I hated his water-colored eyes when he looked at me and I felt,
that he preferred to see someone else.
I hated his hat, which he took only while sleeping
and I knew since childhood, I would get punished if I touched it.
I hated the silence of the house in his presence,
our going on tiptoes and not daring to laugh when he was out of mood.
I hated the stick with which he hit the cows and sometimes my cat,
his axe which he carried to the woods to kill the trees
every single day except the week-ends, till he failed to walk.
I hated his light, quick body which old age failed to reach
and I though the death would never reach it either.
Twice a year he would go to the city to buy some car-parts
or with any other pre-texts.
He would go by all means to the city bath and Navtlughi market
to bring all sorts of useless things
and colorful materials for clothes to my mother.
Once I heard, they rumored that he had a woman in the city
and twice a year took my grandmother’s-made cheese to her.
He would bring the biscuits - old, hardly-chewable, bought at the bus-station.
I would prefer those biscuits to anything else, and ate them in secrecy.
I ate them and thought this man would never die.
translated by Lela Samniashvili