Blackbird, Blackbird, Blackberry
£12.99
Blackbird, Blackbird, Blackberry tells the story of extreme situations: of love for life when we sense its end, of the explosion of aggressive impulses when our freedom is threatened, of discovering a different self in the face of passion, of numerous losses. All this, shown without pathos and set in the Georgian countryside, happens to the middle-aged looking Etero, who runs a local drugstore. Although the locals ridicule her as an old maid, the woman values her own freedom to make her own decisions.
Melashvili portrays the heroine as both harsh and sensual, finding joy in simple things: the smell of fallen leaves, the taste of blackberry jam, the trills of a blackbird. She is torn from her slow contemplation of the world by a passionate feeling that calls her existing value system into question. What kind of person will Etero become after this experience? In her evocative story, which appears to develop linearly but seems to come full circle, Tamta Melashvili shows that it is never too late for love and self discovery.