THE NORTH RIDING PROJECT

I saw Nino’s face in the glow of the setting sun. Nino Kipiani – a beautiful Georgian name, respectable parents with European tastes. What did it matter? Nino had fair skin, big laughing dark Caucasian eyes under long delicate lashes. Only Georgian girls have such sweet and gay eyes. No other girls, European or Asiatic. Delicate half-moon eyebrows, and a Madonna’s profile. I was sad. The comparison made me feel melancholy. There are so many comparisons for a man in the Orient. But these women can only be likened to the Christian Mirjam, symbol of a strange uncomprehensible world.

Said/Nino, 2000