The Italian

Author's name: Shukri Al-Talyani Publisher: Dar Al-Tanweer for Publishing and Distribution Year of publication: 2014 Literary classification: Novel Brief about the book: Despite everything, there is something that connects them more than marriage that circumstances and chance brought about. When Talyani’s lips begin to suck in the saliva of that pipe and his hands explore its soft texture, it becomes a green, tender branch that twists whenever the wind of desire touches it. This devilish plant is astonishing—a restless heart that does not settle into one form. Sometimes it appears as a dry branch or a withered trunk. Other times, it is a luminous, fragrant stick that renews dulled senses. Perhaps that is some of what caused their paths to diverge on most days, but they meet in a moment whose secret they do not know. Zina admitted that Talyani could be seen in moments of his anger as Dante’s hell or Orpheus’s fall, but she saw him in moments of lust as a passionate Indian lover ready to die for love. It was a timed desire that knew no when to explode and left no place in the body untouched by delicious burns or deadly shards… Zina did not disclose this opinion to Abdel Nasser. And he did not do so either. But there was something subtle and profound in the matter that she could not understand. At first, she was taken by a drunkenness mixed with trembling, as if she were in a state of ecstasy, dissolving into Abdel Nasser’s body and merging completely with him. His body was a magnetic field of beauty that lulls the senses and awakens them at the same time. It takes the mind away, leaving all the organs numb. It makes her feel simultaneously unbearable pain and indescribable pleasure. She submits and yields. But when she regains her senses, only a sharp, terrifying pain remains in her womb, below her abdomen, as if thick needles are drilling inside her, moved by a hidden hand that keeps digging and digging without stopping.