14/7 Tass 392
TBILISI, July 14 (Itar-Tass) – Highly acclaimed Georgian writer, dramatist and public figure, Otiya Ioseliani has died here after a long illness at the age of 82, members of the Ioseliani family told reporters.
Otiya Ioseliani was born and spent his green years in the village of Gvishtibi, Tskhaltubo district in western Georgia.
He spent the greater part of his later life in the capital Tbilisi and in his native village.
In 1961, he graduated from the Supreme Literary School of the Soviet Union of Writers in Moscow and returned to Georgia.
Ioseliani is the author of the novels ‘The Soldier Is Back Home’, ‘The Meteor Shower’, ‘Once Upon A Time There Was A Woman’, ‘The Black And The Blue River’, ‘Man Is Born Only Once’, and ‘The Enchanted Height’. Plays based on the latter novel were staged in Georgia and abroad more than 150 times.
Ioseliani’s works have been translated into dozens of languages.
He was known as an ardent supporter of folk traditions and the promoter of the Georgian language and literature.
Ioseliani has stood in a ‘constructive opposition’ to practically all the governments beginning with the Soviet era and throughout the years of independence. His criticism, however, was always accompanied by proposals for what should be done in practical terms to resolve the outstanding problems.
He was especially worried by the mass outflow of fellow-Georgians to other countries in the 1990’s, calling for the measures that would help raise the living standards throughout the country and create conditions for the return of hundreds of thousands of people born in Georgia, who had to leave after the proclamation of independence because of the social and economic problems.