“It is a great read. If you love historical sagas and romances, this is the book for you.”
ABC Radio National The Bookshelf
“Spanning six generations of a family between 1900 and the 21st century, its characters travel to Tbilisi, Moscow, London and Berlin in an epic story of doomed romance that combines humour with magic realism.”
Marta Bausells, The Guardian, ‘Ten of the best new books in translation’
“Elegant…It is a triumph of both authorship and painstaking translation…The Eighth Life is an unforgettable love letter to Georgia and the Caucasus, to lives led and to come, and to writing itself.”
The Economist
“The novel of the year.”
Der Spiegel
“No doubt Nino Haratischwili is one of the most important voices in contemporary German literature.”
Die Zeit
“This is a long, rewarding novel…ably translated through a collaborative process. It makes for an engrossing book. Haratischvili has created a fascinating cast (and it’s easy to imagine it as a television series) whose lives illuminate some of the greatest events of the 20th century.”
Declan O’Driscoll, The Irish Times
“The Eighth Life is a sprawling family saga, to be savoured for its grandeur, scope and scale…Interwoven with love, loss, triumph and tragedy are the uncanny impacts of a family recipe for divine hot chocolate, which just might carry a curse…[E]nthralling and satisfying.” FIVE STARS
Maureen Eppen, Good Reading
“[T]his sprawling epic of love and loss…The Eighth Life is an expansive and hopeful tale centred on family touched by war and revolution.”
Foreword Reviews
“Sometimes I wonder how many people harbour a secret desire to write a book about their family’s entire history. I have certainly met enough women in my life who have expressed this explicitly, especially the stories shared by their mothers and grandmothers—the implication being that we don’t get enough of these stories in literature or biographies. It is perhaps for this reason that reading Nino Haratischwili’s The Eighth Life, translated by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin, feels so familiar, almost like a wish fulfilled…The Eighth Life has deservedly been compared to Tolstoy’s War & Peace.”
Barbara Halla, Asymptote
“The Eighth Life is a saga. An epic saga…Truly absorbing, it feels like a dozen little books contained in one.”
Rebecca Varcoe, Frankie Magazine
“If you only read one book this year make sure it is The Eighth Life…Intricately crafted and addictive, The Eighth Life is an extraordinary, dramatic and compelling read...The ambitious, vivid and unflinching translation from the original German by Ruth Martin and Charlotte Collins is in itself a work of art, and deserves to win every translation prize going.”
BookBlast
“The scope is Tolstoyan: the drama of War and Peace, the emotion of Anna Karenina…A sprinkling of Allendesque magic realism is added, along with a handful of spirits and a secret recipe for delicious and addictive hot chocolate that appears to curse those who drink it.”
Lizzy Siddal, The Riveter
“The Eighth Life is capacious, voluble, urgent, readable, translated heroically and sparklingly by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin.”
Julian Evans, Stuff
“Everybody requires a new, vigorous narrative of European ideals, of the European past…Nino Haratischwili has created this narrative in her new novel.”
Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung
“Nino Haratischwili has written a great book: a book which ranges over a century and half of the globe; a book however, within which—as in the infant’s experience—everything is only love and dread. It is a coup!”
Süddeutsche Zeitung
“Not only in its length does this novel resemble the work of Boris Pasternak. You will not want to put it down. The red century devours a family, and history comes with a pinch of chocolate—Like Water for Chocolate, even.”
Brigitte
“[A]n exceptional, deeply evocative saga of an elite Georgian family as they endure the 20th century’s political upheavals, from before the Bolshevik Revolution through the post-Soviet era…In heartfelt prose, Haratischvili seamlessly weaves the political upheaval around the characters into the love and loss in their lives. Haratischvili’s epic portrait of a close-knit family doubles as a stunning tribute to the power of resilience.” STARRED REVIEW
Publishers Weekly
‘This novel has generated substantial industry buzz and international critical praise. Both are justified…The Eighth Life—the story of a family, a country, a century—is an imaginative, expansive, and important read.’ STARRED REVIEW
Booklist
“If it’s a family saga you’re seeking, look no further than this grand tale, ably translated by Collins and Martin. The author gracefully interweaves the historical backdrop of her novel with the lives of her characters, thus adding depth to her story. Heartily recommended.” STARRED REVIEW
Library Journal
“Georgia, a picturesque nation squeezed between the Caucasus Mountains and the Black Sea, was once considered a wine-soaked playground for the Soviet upper crust. This multigenerational epic, framed as a gift from the embittered narrator, Niza, to her wayward niece, provides a more nuanced view. It begins with Niza’s bourgeois great-grandmother, whose dream of becoming a ballerina is derailed by Lenin’s revolution. Her descendants are likewise transformed by upheavals of the twentieth century: Stalinist purges, the Second World War, the Prague Spring, Georgia’s independence, and the subsequent civil war. Through these events, the novel offers not only a critique of Soviet and Russian imperial ambitions but a necessary reappraisal of Georgian history.”
The New Yorker
“For those who enjoy a big story, that has great characters that will keep you engaged to the very end.” FOUR STARS
Manly Daily
“The Eighth Life is the saga of a Georgian family—its intricate, interconnected lives, its losses, triumphs, sadnesses, and great loves, set against the sweep of Russian history across the twentieth century…an unforgettable, rich and textured piece of literature.”
Georgia Brough, Readings
“Something rather extraordinary happened. The world fell away and I fell, wholly, happily, into the book ... My breath caught in my throat, tears nestled in my lashes ... devastatingly brilliant.”
Wendell Steavenson, The New York Times Book Review
“Once I finished this amazing family tale, the gold is worn off the cover in places, but the memories that made for a story told well will remain with me. I felt part of this family as I traveled with them through time and history; as they shared with me all the threads of their woven carpet, generations old…I loved this amazing book.”
Shannon Alden, Literati Bookstore
“It’s definitely the best work of fiction I've read in the last year.”
John Leake, Novel Bookstore
“If it’s a family saga you’re seeking, look no further than this grand tale…The author gracefully interweaves the historical backdrop of her novel with the lives of her characters, thus adding depth to her story. Heartily recommended.” STARRED REVIEW
Edward B. Cone, Library Journal
“Elegant…it demonstrates a technical mastery, impressively sustained…The Eighth Life is more than a family saga: it is an ode, a lamentation, a monument—to Georgia, its people, its past and future.”
Bryan Karetnyk, TLS
“The Eighth Life is capacious, voluble, urgent, readable, translated heroically and sparklingly by Charlotte Collins and Ruth Martin.”
Julian Evans, The Telegraph
“The Eighth Life…is a lavish banquet of family stories that can, for all their sorrows, be devoured with gluttonous delight. Nino Haratischvili’s characters…come to exuberant life. Her huge novel…shows a double face, its crushing pain and loss nonetheless conveyed with an artful storyteller’s sheer joy in her craft.”
Boyd Tonkin, The Financial Times
“[A]n epic—a magnificent, sprawling family saga that captures the suffering and pride of the Georgian people throughout the tumult of the twentieth century. The writing is rich and the characters full-blooded. Simply put, The Eighth Life is Georgia’s Gone with the Wind.”
Words Without Borders
“The Eighth Life provides readers a bird’s-eye view of conservative Georgian society … The characters who populate this novel courageously survive war and impossible courtships, induced miscarriages and despotic political regimes … gracefully riveting.”
Apala Bhowmick, World Literature Today
“The Eighth Life is a cup of hot chocolate: intoxicating, addictive, and highly pleasurable.”
LA Review of Books
“This is one for long-haul flights or the Christmas lock-in.”
Aer Lingus
“[The Eighth Life] is 913 pages filled with characters who you love, adore, absolutely despise and yet mourn when all is said and done. Historical fiction novel that spans over 100 years.”
Shannen Findlay, Mamamia
"A haunting tale of Georgia over the last century that’s both raw and heartbreaking, The Eighth Life is a brilliant act of storytelling and an insightful look into Georgian culture and history."
Forbes
