Everybody Dies In This Novel

Dedalus Europe General Editor: Timothy Lane EVERYBODYDIESIN THIS NOVEL This book is published with the support of the Writers’ House of Georgia and Arts Council England. Published in the UK by Dedalus Limited 24-26, St Judith’s Lane, Sawtry, Cambs, PE28 5XE [email protected] www.dedalusbooks.com ISBN printed book 978 1 912868 82 7 ISBN ebook 978 1 915568 19 9 Dedalus is distributed in the USA & Canada by SCB Distributors 15608 South New Century Drive, Gardena, CA 90248 [email protected] www.scbdistributors.com Dedalus is distributed in Australia by Peribo Pty Ltd 58, Beaumont Road, Mount Kuring-gai, N.S.W. 2080 [email protected] www.peribo.com.au First published by Dedalus in 2023 Everybody dies in this Novel copyright © Bakur Sulakauri 2018 Translation copyright © Tamar Japaridze 2023 The right of Beka Adamashvili to be identified as the author & Tamar Japaridze as the translator of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988. Printed and bound in the UK by Clays, Elcograf S.p.A. Typeset by Marie Lane This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. The Author Beka Adamashvili Born in 1990, Beka Adamashvili is a postmodern Georgian author, blogger, screenwriter, and Creative Director at an advertising agency. In 2011 he graduated from Caucasus School of Media at Caucasus University with a BA in Journalism and Social Sciences. In 2014 his first novel Bestseller was published. It became a real bestseller in Georgia and was on the shortlist for the best debut novel at the SABA Literary Awards and as the best novel at the Tsinandali Awards. It also received a special prize at the Iliauni Literary Awards. In 2018 Beka Adamashvili published his second postmodern book Everybody Dies in this Novel, which won an EU prize. Both books have been published in English by Dedalus. The Translator Tamar Japaridze Tamar Japaridze is a highly acclaimed Georgian translator and academic. She was the winner of the SABA Literary Prize in 2016 for the best translation of the year. She has translated over thirty literary works from English into Georgian, including authors such as William Shakespeare, Rudyard Kipling, Harold Pinter, John Fowles, Henry Miller, Arundati Roy, Irvine Welsh, Bernardine Evaristo, Margaret Atwood and Kazuo Ishiguro. She has translated Bestseller and Everybody Dies in this Novel, for Dedalus. Contents Prologue Another Prologue Sorry, You are Condemned to Death! Literary Apocalypse Brief Survey of the Planet Kimkardash Travelling in Time and Genres Even Briefer Survey of the Planet Kimkardash In Search of Lost Leah A Bit More about the Planet Kimkardash Recommended Reading 1 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154 155 156 157 158 159 160 161 162 167 168 169 170 171 172 173 174 175 176 177 178 179 183 Prologue Death set his alarm clock for 4:33am. He had been counting everything since insomnia became his vigilant adversary. First he counted the sheep (ten thousand one hundred and ten!), then the sleepless nights (seven thousand seven hundred and seven!), then the seconds spent on counting the sheep and the sleepless nights (eighteen thousand and three!), then the seconds spent on counting the seconds spent on counting the sheep and the sleepless nights… suddenly, it struck him that there were six hundred and twenty(!) other ways of falling asleep besides this futile counting, and he decided to try something else. He thought, he’d better think about nothing, but then realised that thinking of thinking about nothing was already a thought, and felt a persistent ache in his cranium. Next, he turned to a volume by Proust hoping to fall asleep from boredom, but soon reckoned that it wasn’t worth his while, as he didn’t want to be in search of lost time later. Neither closing his eyes to all injustice nor imagining the public reading of the Tokyo telephone directory was of any help. In the end, he waved his wrist bones and finger phalanges despairingly, stared at the wall opposite, and tried to calm himself down by the fact that, all in all, his state was far better than that of the Devil who had never once slept in all his days… …The opposite wall represented a part of Death’s cozy but pretty dead office. On the left there was a door with a huge poster of Jim Morrison – his favorite lead vocalist, a worthy member of his precious collection that was still incomplete. He wanted his collection to consist of twenty-seven unique specimens. When all the twenty-seven were there, he would create the best music band of all time, with big names, equally big performers, and the sequels (such as “Also Like, Haha and Wow” or “Five more months, please”.1) to hits of different epochs. But the valuable specimens had to be selected with the accuracy of a jeweler, since the increasing number of willing applicants threatened the quality