Flight from the U.S.S.R., the first novel from one of Georgia’s most famous author, Dato Turashvili, was originally published in Georgia in 1988. Since then, it has been adapted as a stage play entitled “Jeans Generation” and translated into German, Dutch, Italian, Greek and Croatian; receiving brilliant reviews everywhere.

The novel is based upon an electrifying and tragic event in 1983. Gega Kobakhidze, a young actor, and seven friends hijack an airplane heading from Tbilisi to Leningrad. They desperately want to flee from the USSR and go to Turkey. They fail, are imprisoned and a number are killed. All of Georgia and the world were caught up in these events.

Turashvili is a master of drama, with a precise and compelling sense of dialogue, his characterisations are complex but powerful, his story-line is totally engrossing, and we do not want to believe the inevitable and disastrous conclusion. He weaves a gripping literary work between historical fact and fiction, leaving the reader transfixed.