Tamta Melashvili

Tamta Melashvili (Ambrolauri, 1979) is a Georgian writer and professor at Tbilisi State University. She graduated in Gender Studies from the Central European University in Budapest in 2008. Her debut novel, Counting Out, won the Saba Award for Best Debut Work in 2011. The German translation of Counting Out received the prestigious Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 2013. Numerous theatrical adaptations of the novel have been staged in Georgian, German, and Russian. Her second novel, To the East, was published in 2015, and in 2020 she released Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry, which was successfully adapted into a film that won several European awards, including the “Heart of Sarajevo” in 2023. The Polish translation of Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry won the prestigious Book of the Year award in 2025. Melashvili’s novels have been translated into about ten languages, and some of her stories have been included in anthologies. She has participated in several writers’ residency programs. She lives and works in Tbilisi.