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.

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 "