Lagraziana's Kalliopeion

The plot of Three Horses is quickly told. The unnamed narrator, a reclusive middle-aged gardener with a love for used books, sits in a tavern somewhere in Southern Italy where he meets Laila, a young and enigmatic prostitute. The encounter triggers a whole series of flashbacks to the time when the narrator had been living in Argentina ruled by the terror regime of Jorge Videla and his successors. As the story evolves and the acquaintance between him and Laila grows into a love affair, Laila and the reader learn about the tragic fate of the narrator and his Argentinian wife Dvora. Laila decides to give up working as a prostitute because she can't bear any longer being touched by men who don't love her. She confesses to the narrator that she intends to kill her pimp to free herself, but the story takes a different turn that I won't give away here. You'll have to find out yourself!It goes without saying that I enjoyed reading Three Horses by Erri de Luca very much because otherwise I wouldn't have bothered to write this review. It's a nice piece of contemporary Italian literature, a little gem that definitely deserves being noticed by a greater public and that I'm grateful to have been given as a present.

If you'd like to read a longer version of this review, please come to http://edith-lagraziana.blogspot.co.at/2013/02/three-horses-by-erri-de-luca.html!