About Konstantine Gamsakhurdia
Konstantine Gamsakhurdia was a Georgian writer and public figure. Educated and first published in Germany, he married Western European influences to purely Georgian thematic to produce his best works, such as The Right Hand of the Grand Master and David the Builder. Hostile to the Soviet rule, he was, nevertheless, one of the few leading Georgian writers to have survived the Stalin-era repressions, despite exile to a White Sea island and several arrests. His works are noted for their character portrayals of great psychological insight. Another major feature of Gamsakhurdia's writings is a new subtlety he infused into Georgian diction, imitating an archaic language to create a sense of classicism. Konstantine Gamsakhurdia's son, Zviad, became a Soviet-era dissident who was subsequently elected the first President of Georgia in 1991, but died under suspicious circumstances in the civil war in 1993. Gamsakhurdia published his first poems and short stories early in the 1910s, influenced by German Expressionism and by French Post-Symbolist literature. In 1925 Gamsakhurdia published his first and one of his most impressive novels, The Smile of Dionysus (დიონისოს ღიმილი), which took him eight years to write.
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