About Author

About author ——

Ushangi Rizhinashvili

Poet, prose writer, translator

Ushangi Rizhinashvili (Ушанги Ильич Рижинашвили) is a Georgian writer who writes in Russian: a poet, prose writer, translator and publisher. He was born on 22 June 1940 in Kutaisi, Georgia. He graduated from Kharkov State University in 1964 and in 1970 completed postgraduate studies at the Institute of Philosophy of the USSR Academy of Sciences in Moscow, where he earned his degree in philosophy (Candidate of Philosophical Sciences, Ph.D.) with a dissertation on semiotics, information theory and aesthetics.

His first publication appeared in a Tbilisi youth newspaper in 1957, and his first book of poems, «Три солнца», came out in Kharkov in 1964. Books of prose and poetry followed in Tbilisi and Moscow, among them «Зрение» (1978), «Дом» (1981; second edition 1984, with an afterword by Lev Anninsky), «Обратная перспектива» (1983), «Мартвисская осень» (1987), «Пришло мое время…» (1987) and «Оглянусь в печали и любви…» (1990). His novella «Шакро», published in the magazine «Знамя» in 1982, received the magazine's annual prize; «Дом» and «Шакро» were also awarded the prize of the VTsSPS and the USSR Writers' Union.

He translated novels by Grigol Chikovani, Guram Panjikidze, Tamaz Bibiluri and Revaz Japaridze from Georgian into Russian and served as editor-in-chief of the Merani publishing house in Tbilisi. In October 1989 he travelled to Israel with the first official delegation of the Georgian Writers' Union.

A member of the International PEN Club and winner of a number of literary awards, he is the author of 15 books of poetry and prose, as well as two monographs. His works have been translated into many languages, including English and Hebrew. His collected poems, «Годы & города» (Times & Places), were published in Jerusalem in 2008. He lives in Los Angeles and continues to publish poetry in «Слово\Word», «Новый Журнал» and «Чайка».