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Prospero’s Bookshop and café opened its doors on the world, 17th October 1999. We were then the first English language bookshop café not only in Georgia, but the entire Caucasus region. Our purpose was to serve the local community with a full range of international literature, language teaching, and informational books in a central location. Luckily, we found a quiet courtyard at No 34 Rustaveli Avenue – which was about as good as we could get.    Our other intention was to become the first port of call for tourists, foreigners and visitors of all kinds to the Georgian capital. We would stock up-to-date guide books, maps, local newspapers, novels, have a notice board and internet café where people could meet,exchange stories and prepare for their next Caucasian adventure.    But for a good café we needed good coffee. At the time there was a shortage in Tbilisi. So not only did we begin importing our own beans, we then roasted and ground them too, actually on the premises. Prospero’s blend of coffee is still famous in Tbilisi today. Since that day we have expanded, doubling in size. We have also opened two new branches, one at Betsy’s Hotel and the other At the Exhibition Center of the National Archives on Vasha Pshavela street.   Prospero’s continues to thrive to this day – and on 17thOctober 2019 we celebrate our 20th birthday to become the longest surviving business on R Next

Nineteen years ago The Bookseller asked for an account of our opening the first English language bookshop in the heart of the then, woolly Caucasus. Prospero's Books at 34 Rustaveli Av, Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, was born into a time of power cuts, local corruption, war across the border and very few tourists. Then our primary asset, after the books, was our generator. Reading it back now, a nervous phrase in the article stands out, 'would there be enough English speakers to keep the business going?'   When I penned those words we'd been open for 11 months. Today we are about to become 20 years old - and one of the longest running businesses on Rustaveli (the city's Oxford St).   So what allowed us to survive?   Apart from the obvious - our backbone Tamara Megrelishvili, whose managerial determination, belief and skill has been there from day one, several unforeseen factors certainly helped. First that the Georgian speakers/customers not foreigners, would form the bedrock of our business at over 50% (especially during the leaner winter months). Second that initially we became a major information source in the city, as modern Russian language publications were dwindling fast along with Russian speakers. If locals wanted to, say... start a business; travel; learn a language or computer program, or were pregnant, or just generally curious, we could help. But even when reliable internet services arrived across the country, including the remote mountain areas, still this factor never completely disappeared.   Next

The art of history, so they say, was born in the flickering of a campfire. ‘Character in Georgia,’ by Aka Morchiladze and Peter Nasmyth, returns us to this historical ethos as a litany of tales to be shared and celebrated. In its pages, we meet Georgia’s noble bandits, such as Arsena of Marabda, and its intellectual luminaries, such as Ilia Chavchavadze. They emerge from the past fully-fleshed and ready to re-live the stories that inform the modern Georgian national character. To the English speaker, this book is nothing short of a gift for anyone hoping to get past the curtain of khinkali, good wine, and mustachioed men in chokhas. Character is an inspired version of Kartulis Rveulebi (Georgian Notebooks) by Aka Morchiladze, a historian and Georgia’s most celebrated contemporary writer of fiction. With the help of the talented translator Maya Kiasashvili, the text was placed in the hands of Peter Nasmyth, a well-known British writer who has lived part-time in Georgia for 30 years and authored a small collection of well-received books on the country. The key to Character’s accessibility to the English-speaker is Nasmyth’s charming writing style and deep appreciation for his subject. Morchildaze’s original audience was, of course, the Georgian public, who require no introduction to the characters, contexts and geographies that provide the landscape of the book. Perhaps the most impressive achievement of Character is the mastery with which all necessary facts and historical contexts are woven seamlessly into the origi Next