“Kvachi is . . . an international con-man, through whose eyes we see Europe and Russia as nothing but a rogue’s hunting ground . . . The abrupt, sardonic prose brims over with inventiveness.”
— Donald Rayfield, The Literature of Georgia
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This is, in brief, the story of a swindler, a Georgian Felix Krull, or perhaps a cynical Don Quixote, named Kvachi Kvachantiradze: womanizer, cheat, perpetrator of insurance fraud, bank-robber, associate of Rasputin, filmmaker, revolutionary, and pimp. Though originally denounced as pornographic, Kvachi’s tale is one of the great classics of twentieth-century Georgian literature—and a hilarious romp to boot.