Stories from Saba: Selected Fables from The Book of Wisdom and Lies

“It is with happiness that we have had the advantage of seeing the wisdom of Solomon and divine grace with our own eyes in the person of Your Greatness.”

This was the welcome Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani received at the court of the French king Louis XIV when he was dispatched there on a diplomatic mission to save his native Georgia.

Orbeliani’s reputation as a fabulist, lexicographer, translator, and diplomat preceded him. His crowning work is The Book of Wisdom and Lies (წიგნი სიბრძნე-სიცრუისა), a collection of fables and tales written when he was in his early twenties.

These witty fables draw together the light and dark side of human nature and burst with life. Orbeliani is regarded as one of Georgia’s subtlest prose-writers, and here the translators of the Oxford Georgian Translation Project have done him full justice.

This is the second title in their Unlocking the Door series of English translations of great works of Georgian literature.

This new publication recently featured, together with Unlocking the Door (Cezanne, 2017), at the 2023 London Book Fair.