The Eighth Life

Product Description

An epic family saga beginning with the Russian Revolution and swirling across a century, encompassing war, loss, love requited and unrequited, ghosts, joy, massacres, tragedy. And hot chocolate.
At the start of the twentieth century, on the edge of the Russian empire, a family prospers. It owes its success to a delicious chocolate recipe, passed down the generations with great solemnity and caution. A caution which is justified: this is a recipe for ecstasy that carries a very bitter aftertaste…
Stasia learns it from her Georgian father and takes it north, following her new husband, Simon, to his posting at the center of the Russian Revolution in St Petersburg. Stasia’s is only the first in a symphony of grand but all too often doomed romances that swirl from sweet to sour in this epic tale of the red century.
Tumbling down the years, and across vast expanses of longing and loss, generation after generation of this compelling family hears echoes and sees reflections. A ballet dancer never makes it to Paris and a singer pines for Vienna. Great characters and greater relationships come and go and come again; the world shakes, and shakes some more, and the reader rejoices to have found at last one of those glorious old books in which you can live and learn, be lost and found, and make indelible new friends.

Review

“This multigenerational epic…offers not only a critique of Soviet and Russian imperial ambitions but a necessary reappraisal of Georgian history.” ―
The New Yorker

“Something rather extraordinary happened. The world fell away and I fell, wholly, happily, into the book…My breath caught in my throat, tears nestled in my lashes…devastatingly brilliant.” ―Wendell Steavenson, The New York Times Book Review
“This multigenerational epic…offers not only a critique of Soviet and Russian imperial ambitions but a necessary reappraisal of Georgian history.” ―The New Yorker
“[A]n exceptional, deeply evocative saga of an elite Georgian family as they endure the 20th century’s political upheavals, from before the Bolshevik Revolution through the post-Soviet era…In heartfelt prose, Haratischvili seamlessly weaves the political upheaval around the characters into the love and loss in their lives. Haratischvili’s epic portrait of a close-knit family doubles as a stunning tribute to the power of resilience.” STARRED REVIEW ―Publishers Weekly
“This novel has generated substantial industry buzz and international critical praise. Both are justified…The Eighth Life―the story of a family, a country, a century―is an imaginative, expansive, and important read.” STARRED REVIEW ―Bethany Latham, Booklist
“If it’s a family saga you’re seeking, look no further than this grand tale…The author gracefully interweaves the historical backdrop of her novel with the lives of her characters, thus adding depth to her story. Heartily recommended.” STARRED REVIEW ―Edward B. Cone, Library Journal
“This is a long, rewarding novel…ably translated through a collaborative process. It makes for an engrossing book. Haratischvili has created a fascinating cast (and it’s easy to imagine it as a television series) whose lives illuminate some of the greatest events of the 20th century.” ―Declan O’Driscoll, The Irish Times
“Elegant…it demonstrates a technical mastery, impressively sustained…The Eighth Life is more than a family saga: it is an ode, a lamentation, a monument―to Georgia, its people, its past and future.” ―Bryan Karetnyk, TLS
“The Eighth Life is capacious, voluble, urgent, readable, translated heroically and sparklingly by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin.” ―Julian Evans, The Telegraph
“Spanning six generations of a family between 1900 and the 21st century, its characters travel to Tbilisi, Moscow, London and Berlin in an epic story of doomed romance that combines humour with magic realism.” ―Marta Bausells, The Guardian, ‘Ten of the best new books in translation’
“Nino Haratischvili’s elegant epic…is a triumph of both authorship a