My name is Nino Todua, and I am from the country of Georgia. I relocated to the United States in 2018 and currently live in Brooklyn, New York. I earned a Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Literature from Brooklyn College. I am an aspiring publicity or editorial assistant with a passion for books and publishing, and my dream is to work at Penguin Random House. You can find me on Facebook, Instagram, and Linkedin.

1. Why do you read?

I read because that is an activity I have done since childhood, and it’s a part of my growth and my life. I read because I love stories. When I read I often think that it is the most vivid activity I engage in, providing me with immense inspiration and many lasting impressions. Reading helps me find myself beyond the characters; it’s like witnessing yourself from the stage. I have a feeling that I’m a plural character and I am all of them at once. Sometimes, I feel like I am the book’s character in reality. At times, I read because I miss drama in my own life. Other times, when I face difficulties, I search for reliefs and answers within pages. Sometimes, it is simply for entertainment. Mostly, it’s inspiring, reflecting other dimensions and worlds that the pages act as a bridge to. I also believe I love reading because it reminds me of the ‘home of my soul’; it reminds me of something deep within me that I have forgotten. In general, I believe we all read because reading satisfies an intellectual hunger.

2. What does reading give you that other experiences do not?

Reading is essential for me to gain various experiences. For me, it’s a bridge between different dimensions; while other activities provide earthly experiences, reading, much like music, offers more than that. For example, while reading, I can feel my life transcend into different times, bodies, consciousness, and even in different forms. The emotions that act of reading arouses within me go beyond my earthly being. I remember experiencing the Sun’s warm rays on my skin while reading Proust. It was not the actual Sun but pages of the book that gave me the feeling of warmth. This is why I call reading the act of transcending my human body into different dimensions.

3. What was the first book you remember reading? Why do you think that memory stays with you?

My first book was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, and that was the book that made me fall in love with literature. From that time on, I started reading and never stopped. Of course, I had a pause but I always ended up back with books. Starting with Mark Twain and continuing with Astrid Lindgren, a great Swedish children’s author, my childhood became full of fantasy, happiness and adventures. The memories that I gained from my childhood reading shaped me into a reader who was never far from the books. They became my spiritual friends, and I think those childhood memories from within the pages were essential for me, to be and to remain, an eager reader.

4. What is your favorite book, author, or genre?

There were different times when I had different favorite writers and genres. From Mark Twain and Astrid Lindgren, I found myself loving the books of French writer Alexandre Dumas, Arthur Conan Doyles’s Sherlock Holmes Series and also I think I read all the detective books by Agatha Christie that were translated into Georgian. Towards the end of my school life, I fell in love with the great Georgian writer Konstantine Gamsakhurdia and he was my favorite for a long time. His books are historical novels written in archaic Georgian, which some people consider a difficult language, but I remember reading his text and hearing music, poetry and beauty in his prose.

After a while, Dostoevsky became my favorite for a long time. Then there was Marcel Proust. For now, I adore two Latin writers, Clarice Lispector and Jorje Luis Borges. Borges became, for me, the tip of the pyramid of literature. There is not only one genre, but my favorite may be considered the stream of consiousness. My favorite books are Gamsakhurdia’s Kidnapping the Moon and The Right Hand of the Grand Master; Dostoevsky’s The Idiot and The Brothers Karamazov; Borges’s Fictions and The Aleph, and Lispector’s The Hour of the Star. So, there is not only one book or writer because it’s somehow impossible to have just one.

5. Did reading help you through a difficult season of life? If yes, how so?

Definitely. What I found was that while other people are reading just for entertainment, and I was doing it too, the main surprise for me was realizing that books helped me through the difficult times of my life. I used to joke that you can’t read Dostoevsky if you are happy. Literature, especially classic literature, is a collection of texts of great spirits; they have the ability to be your friends, psychologists, spiritual gurus and even doctors for your soul. How? I think one word I can use is HOPE. Literature gave me a lot of hope… hope that there is some essence beyond every difficulty. Hope, relief and dreams. As a child, literature gave me many beautiful daydreams. So, I’m not sure if it’s smart to have “empty” hopes and dreams, but that was what I received, what I accepted, and what I loved.

6. Is reading an escape for you, a confrontation, or something else?

I often catch myself thinking that reading was an escape for me. A lot of things I was looking for were in books and many things that I didn’t realize should be part of real life, were in books as well. So, for me, reading was a way of searching for something that was missing from reality. Now, I accept that loving reading so much is simply a love of knowledge. You want to know more, and you read because of that. While I considered it an escape from reality, I now call it intellectual curiosity, a thirst for knowledge.

7. Has a book ever felt like it was written just for you?

Yes, last time I felt like this was while reading Lispector’s The Hour of the Star and Borges’s Fictions. I was shocked; I felt that these books were written for me. I felt that nobody could grasp their intimate essence except for me because they were so ‘for me’. It was like being in the same stream of consciousness of the writer’s mind. I could feel this stream even beyond the physical words; I felt something beyond the book itself. It was for me, about me, or it made me remember something deep in my unconscious layers. Just reading it made me recognize the locked rooms of my own unconsciousness. This magic can only be found in literature.

8. If you could thank one author, who would it be and why?

While I have few favorite writers, I often say ‘thank you’ in my writings and blogs to the Swedish children’s author Astrid Lindgren. The impact that she made on my childhood is beyond words. I call her the ‘Kind Witch’ who colored my childhood and gave me many unforgettable, vivid memories. I even remember smelling the Swedish spring and grass while reading her Seacrow Island (or Saltkrakan) in my backyard. I still read that book. It’s something that remains beyond childhood; it’s about the love of life, beauty and joy that I often want to reread and remember.

9. If your life were a book, what genre would it be?

It would be a psychological drama. Now, I’m changing the genre of my life to the stream of consciousness: just be under the stream.

10. Does your aspiration to work in publishing affect how you read?

My dream is to work in publishing. I don’t really know if it would change how I read; I have a very emotional, vivid imagination and I can feel text beyond the words themselves. It might depend on the department, as some areas could provide the practical skills to look at a book in a different way. However, I believe the way I read will ultimately remain the same for me.

11. Has writing influenced how or what you read?

I write for my own blog, but I have never felt influenced by any one particular writer. In general, I feel I write simply because I read a lot. In my opinion, anyone who reads a lot is able to write because books shape your imagination. Whenever I feel ready to write and I sit to do so, the words come by themselves; I never know beforehand what I’m going to write. That’s why I love the ‘stream of consciousness’ genre. I like staying within that flow. However, whenever I try to force it into the shape of a story, giving it prologue, an introduction or something structured beyond the stream, I never like my writing. That is why I feel that just reading allows your imagination to flow in its own way.