Zaza Koshkadze: A Zombie Who Loved Literature

Born in 1982 as Levan Tsertsvadze. He holds a degree in Georgian folk music from the Institute of Traditional and Contemporary Art in Tbilisi and together with other young poets and artists, co-founded the Net of Alternative Poetry, and, later, the Pink Bus group. Two of his short stories were selected for the Fifteen Best Georgian Stories annual anthology. His book of poems, A Midnight Dance for Cancer, was nominated as best debut in 2013. For the last five years, he has been working as a television copywriter and film scriptwriter. In 2010 and 2012, he participated in several literary workshops and festivals in Bratislava, Istanbul and Prague. In 2013, he founded Insomnia, the first genre fiction festival in Georgia, promoting fantasy, sci-fi and horror literature. In 2015, he was invited to speak at the World Science Fiction Convention in the United States. His short story collection, A Zombie Who Loved Literature, was published as an e-book in 2016. Koshkadze is a bold, loud poet, verbalizing intimate and erotic topics in his poetry. ‘Zaza is a writer to watch, and his poems celebrate life and berate it, the ghosts of Kerouac and Bukowski breathing down his neck, a brave new world to conquer,’ writes Welsh writer Richard Gwyn.