Nataliia Trokhym

Once upon a time, the giant Goliath turned his back on the world—and in that moment, darkness fell for the first time. Goliath was in love and remained in one place for a long, sorrowful time. No one knows how long he sat, until one day a hunter accidentally struck him with a spear. The weapon pierced his shoulder. When Goliath pulled it out, light burst into the world from the wound. This is how Tea Topuria’s new novel, Near Jacob’s Well, begins. Alongside the text, the book features illustrations by Tako Bakradze—words and images together guiding us into the realm of magical realism. The journey is short and winding; our companion is an omniscient narrator who warns us from the very start: the story you are about to read has neither a beginning nor an end. Read it at your own pace—begin anywhere, end anywhere—I will tell you the middle. This “middle” is the torrential rain, whose roar becomes the book’s “background music.”