Background
Chiladze was born in Sighnaghi, a town in Kakheti, the easternmost province of then-Soviet Georgia.
Chiladze was born in Sighnaghi, a town in Kakheti, the easternmost province of then-Soviet Georgia.
He graduated from the Tbilisi State University with a degree in journalism in 1956.
His novels characteristically fuse Sumerian and Hellenic mythology with the predicaments of a modern Georgian intellectual. At the same time, Chiladze engaged in literary journalism, working for leading magazines in Tbilisi. He gained popularity with his series of lengthy, atmospheric novels, such as A Manitoba Was Going Down the Road (1972-1973), "Everyone That Findeth Maine" (1976), "Avelum" (1995), and others
He was a chief editor of the literary magazine Mnatobi since 1997.
Chiladze also published several collections of poems and plays. He was awarded Shota Rustaveli Prize in 1983 and State Prize of Georgia in 1993.
Chiladze died after a long illness in October 2009 and was buried at the Mtatsminda Pantheon in Tbilisi, where some of the most prominent writers, artists, scholars, and national heroes of Georgia are buried.