His novels characteristically fuse Sumerian and Hellenic mythology with the predicaments of a modern Georgian intellectual.

[1] Chiladze was born in Sighnaghi, a town in Kakheti, the easternmost province of then-Soviet Georgia.

He gained popularity with his series of lengthy, atmospheric novels, such as A Man Was Going Down the Road (1972–3), Everyone That Findeth Me (1976), Avelum (1995), and others.

His works have been translated into English, Russian, Armenian, Estonian, Serbian, French, Danish, German, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Czech, Slovakian and Spanish.

Otar Chiladze's novels A Man Was Going Down the Road and Avelum, translated by Donald Rayfield, were published in the United Kingdom in 2012 and 2013.