A Big She-Bear

A Big She-Bear is a Georgian novel published in 2013 by the writer Miho Mosulishvili (born 1962). Its subtitle presents it as a story of mountains, with a prologue and an epilogue, and it is set in a village in the mountains of the South Caucasus.

The villagers struggle with a huge she-bear that has damaged their corn fields, beehives and cattle, killed hunters and their dogs, and evaded every kind of trap. The village governor, who bears the biblical name Ahab, tries to kill the bear with the help of the villagers. Gradually, however, everyone comes to realize that the animal is a ghost from Ahab's past.

A little boy, Vache, fears that the bear will be killed, since for him it symbolizes the sin the community committed: Ahab promised to marry Vache's mother, Lela, and deceived her. Abandoned and criticized by the villagers, Lela took her own life. The novel first appeared in 2013 from Saunje Publishing and was re-released in 2025 by Europe Books. In 2015 its author won a Georgian Ministry of Culture competition for adapting 21st-century Georgian literary works as a screenwriter, and the project was taken to film by Lira Production, directed by Lali Kiknavelidze.