Transcultural Writing and Non-hegemonic Universalism. Reading Ali and Nino in the Context of Global Literary Studies
Transcultural Writing and Non-hegemonic Universalism. Reading Ali and Nino in the Context of Global Literary Studies

Summary/Abstract: The kinetic sculpture of Tamara Kvesitadze that adorns Batumi’s seashore promenade may appear, at the first glance, as quite an unattractive pair of tailor’s dummies. Its full appreciation requires the ability of reading the literary allusion implied in the sculptural form. What is more, this work conceived in 2007 and installed at the location in 2010 only reveals its full meaning when put into movement: the figures perform a slow dance periodically merging with one another, only to take a distance from one another once again. The dummies represent Ali and Nino, the heroes of a book written in German and published in Vienna in 1937, that nonetheless is often seen as the most notorious, almost the “paradigmatic” Caucasian novel. Meanwhile, the sculpture and the literary work it evokes may also be seen as a symbol of transcultural writing in which traditional identities perform a complex dance, merging and re-emerging as distinct, well-defined and isolated.

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