★★★☆☆
Nana Ekvitimishvili’s debut novel is a short, intense work that confronts society’s silence and ethical blind spots.
First published in 2015, The Pear Field is a remarkable debut in Georgian literature: it is the only Georgian work to have been longlisted for the Booker Prize (2021). Beyond accolades, the text confronts readers with difficult, socially uncomfortable, and ethically taxing subject matter — the lives of those residing in a suburban Tbilisi boarding school for intellectually disabled children, or, as the locals call it, the ‘school for idiots’.
The novel features many characters, yet due to its brevity, most remain sketches, names, or voices. Two main figures stand out: 18-year-old Lela and 9-year-old Irakli. Lela, a survivor of sexual violence who contemplates murdering the boarding school director Vano, serves as the text’s central consciousness. Irakli attracts interest because he has the unusual possibility of a ‘better future’ than other children in the ‘school for idiots’. While the narrator claims omniscience, in practice we inhabit only Lela’s mind; other characters ‘do not think’.
While the characters are fictionalised, the sources of inspiration are unmistakable, intensifying the narrative’s emotional and ethical impact.. The novel negotiates a delicate tension between realism and literary tragedy, raising questions about how literature transforms real-life events — does it diminish their gravity, or risk amplifying them beyond reality?
Ekvtimishvili’s background as a filmmaker — best known for In Bloom (2013) and My Happy Family (2017) — is also evident throughout. The narrative sometimes functions like a camera — constantly in the ‘here and now,’ focusing on minute details, using brief sentences, repeated structures, and simple vocabulary. This kind of storytelling can be tedious in a longer book, but since The Pear Field is only around 200 pages, it reads smoothly.
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The novel does not feature very open endings, yet the reading process offers a few surprises. For example, there are three episodes in which tension builds over two or three pages, making the reader feel that something terrible is bound to happen. While these pages end with nothing particularly dramatic occurring, a single paragraph concluding the section either resolves all the tension at once or transforms it entirely into tragedy.
Additionally, time in the novel is not linear, but is rooted in the present. Someone moves, someone smokes a cigarette, someone stands in the yard. Memories appear only momentarily, never forming full biographies, but breaking through as shards of trauma.
Space is constructed similarly. Kerch Street, where the school is located, the school itself, the pear-filled yard, and the cemetery — all are rich in smell, sound, and physical sensation. Most striking is the schoolyard itself, the symbolic centre of the text: a swampy, mud-laden expanse where children’s feet sink into the ground. It operates simultaneously as a visual, sensory, and ethical symbol. The trees bear fruit, yet the fruit is bitter and ‘spoiled’.
Spaces in the novel are like scenes of sin, where everyday trivialities, such as stealing berries from a neighbour’s yard, coexist with extreme violence, rape, and physical abuse among the members of the ‘school for idiots’.
The Pear Field offers no clear moral stance. It depicts violence, indifference, and society’s attitudes toward the boarding school, yet refrains from prescribing judgement. This very silence may be read either as a failure to take responsibility or as a conscious choice, compelling the audience to think independently.
The novel addresses subjects rarely explored in Georgian literature: the lives of boarding school children, institutional violence, and social invisibility. The Pear Field is not an easy text — emotionally, ethically, or aesthetically. It reads swiftly, with moments of harrowing intensity, and constructs a visually precise world.
Despite leaving some questions unanswered and occasionally lacking full credibility, the book reads quickly and enjoyably, with several surprising, gripping, and thrilling episodes for the reader.
Book details: The Pear Field (2015) by Nana Ekvitimishvili, translated into English by Elizabeth Heighway for Peirene Press in 2020. Buy it from the publisher here or find it on major retailers such as Amazon.
