An Alternative Map of Georgia, by Guram Megrelishvili, is a modern book that serves as an ideal guide to the traditions, cuisine, geography, people, and legends of Georgia. This is a book of creative prose, written in a pseudodocumentary style, that tells us all about Georgia, from prehistory to the modern day. The traveller-narrator covers the length and breadth of the country, becoming entangled in adventures of different kinds wherever he goes.

 

The legend of Medea and the Argonauts, with which the book begins, segues naturally into the arrival of the Crusaders in Georgia. From there, the story continues with a visit by a group of Hollywood filmmakers to the mountainous regions of the country to shoot a movie about Islamic State terrorists planning to steal the sacred relics of one of the apostles, believed to be buried there.

 

The author skilfully recounts events from historical and present-day Georgia in the context of his travels and alongside descriptions of the places he visits. The book is accompanied by photographic, video, and audio material that the reader can view by scanning QR codes. The book is thus an interactive, dynamic read that reveals the peculiarities of a small, exotic country located on the crossroads between Europe and Asia, and for this reason, it will no doubt be doubly fascinating to readers brought up in completely different cultures.

 

"The new book by Guram Megrelishvili is exactly the kind I enjoy reading the most – you start and cannot stop reading until you reach the end. The magic of the author's mastership is that the universe he creates in his book seems much more real and believable than the real world we live in. And this is what we can call real literature..." – Dato Turashvili.