* AN OBSERVER BEST NEW NOVELIST FOR 2024 * * SHORTLISTED FOR THE WILBUR SMITH ADVENTURE WRITING
PRIZE 2024 * ?A spellbinding achievement' FINANCIAL TIMES ?Poignant and often painfully comic'
OBSERVER ?I gasped laughed and wept my way through it' KHALED HOSSEINI ?Hugely impressive'
NEW EUROPEAN ?Novels like this might help light the way' GUARDIAN 'At once a puzzle hunt and an
affecting meditation on exile' ECONOMIST Tbilisi's littered with memories that await me like
landmines. The dearly departed voices I silenced long ago have come back without my permission.
The situation calls for someone with a plan. I didn't even bring toothpaste. Saba's father is
missing and the trail leads back to Tbilisi Georgia. It's been two decades since Irakli fled
his war-torn homeland with two young sons now grown men. Two decades since he saw their mother
who stayed so they could escape. At long last Tbilisi has lured him home. But when Irakli's
phone calls stop a mystery begins... Arriving in the city as escaped zoo animals prowl the
streets Saba picks up the trail of clues: strange graffiti bewildering messages transmitted
through the radio pages from his father's unpublished manuscript scattered like breadcrumbs.
As the voices of those left behind pull at the edges of his world Saba will discover that all
roads lead back to the past and to secrets swallowed up by the great forests of Georgia. In a
winding pursuit through the magic and mystery of returning to a lost homeland Hard by a Great
Forest is a rare searching tale of home memory and sacrifice - of one family's mission to
rescue one another and put the past to rest.
