Photo © Nata Sopromadze

Lasha Bugadze is a writer of fiction, nonfiction, and plays, as well as a host of online and TV literary programs. Born in 1977, he lives and works in Tbilisi. 

His novel A Small Country (2017) won three major awards in 2018—SABA, the Ilia State University Award, and Litera. He has received SABA award for six times throughout his career, including the Special Prize for the Soviet and Post-Soviet Reflection for the novel In the Name of Georgia (2023). 

His earlier novel, The Literature Express (2009), was published in English by Dalkey Archive Press in 2013 and offers a witty take on Georgia’s aspirations to join the EU and the challenges faced by writers from small nations writing in small languages. 

Bugadze won the International BBC Playwriting Competition in 2011 for his play The Navigator, and his play The President Has Come to See You was performed at London’s Royal Court Theatre in 2013.