Born in 1968, Dato Kardava (the pen name of Jimsher Rekhviashvili) is a contemporary Georgian writer and journalist. He graduated from Tbilisi State University in 1992 with a degree in physics. Dato has been active in the realm of journalism for over twenty years and concurrently writes prose works. His first short stories were printed in the magazine Arili in the 1990s.

 

He has been a reporter and a blogger for the Tbilisi bureau of Radio Tavisupleba since 2002. 

 

His first prosaic collection NOAH'S DOVES was published in 2005. In 2011, his extensive essay READING MATERIAL FOR THE BATHROOM was printed. Both books were nominated for the literary award SABA. He is the recipient of a number of journalistic or literary prizes. His short stories have ended up many times in the year’s best collection of short stories. In 2011 his short story was included in the anthology Georgian Short Stories of the 21st Century. A collection of essays about the Mtkvari River was published in 2013 – The MTKVARI and ITS TWO BANKS . One of these essays earned third place in the competition CRITIQUE, ESSAY WRITING, PUBLICISM announced by Literaturuli Gazeti (The Literary Paper).

 

Dato Kardava’s prosaic collection Esau ’s Hands was published by Intelekti Publishing in 2015, which received the joint literary LITERA Award from the Georgian Ministry of Culture and Monument Protection and the Writers’ House of Georgia in the category The Year’s Best Prosaic Collection/Novel.