Sun of Al Skorta

Author's name: Laurent Goudihdar Publisher: Dar Al-Mada for Publishing and Distribution Year of publication: 2019 Literary classification: Book summary: As if the migrant is splitting the earth. No breeze stirs the olive branches. Everything is still. The scent of the hills vanishes into dust. And the stone groans from the intense heat. It was August, casting its weight over the Gargano mountains with stubbornness, and that water watered fields and, one day, watered the olive trees. No one would think that life, of an animal or a plant, found — under that arid sky — what nourishes it. It was two o'clock in the afternoon, and the earth was prey to burning. On a dirt road, a donkey was walking slowly. Taking the turns humbly. Nothing overcomes its stubbornness. Neither the scorching air it breathes, nor the jagged stones that gnaw at its hooves. It walks forward, and its rider is like a knight destined for a chronic punishment. The man does not move, as if overwhelmed by the heat, leaving his beast to seek the end of that path for both of them. Slowly, meter by meter, the donkey, with its slow effort, covers the distance kilometers after kilometers, while the knight mutters words quickly evaporated by the heat: "Nothing will stop me... the sun may kill the lizards of the hills, but I will endure. I have waited too long... for the earth to hiss and for my hair to catch fire, I am walking my way to the end."