Spanning more than a century, punctuated by the circus and theatrical solo performances of Carbone, a brilliant and hugely influential artist, the protagonists of Le bestie inhabit a world perpetually at war. Umbertino, a boxer and boxing coach, repeatedly brushes with death, yet he was born to fight with a smile on his face and to survive: the bombing of Palermo, street clashes, the burden of guilt. Maddalena, known as “La Turca”, is a woman of honour who abides by the rules of the Mafia and fights for her own survival, a woman in a world of men who resemble dogs, governed by the same pack mentality and the same surrender to primal instincts. Menico Carabillò, a veteran of the Great War with an extraordinary talent for reading clues and traces, cannot forgive the police department where he works for its collusion with Cosa Nostra. A distinguished priest enlists him to reconstruct a dark, prophetic manuscript scattered across Sicily. Around them moves a restless cast of characters: heretical Jesuits, Satanists, murderers, women devoted to truth and disciples of deceit. Men and women who, as though caught in a dance, fly, fall and rise again, only to fly once more and fall better. They know that evil is alive and present everywhere, and that the anatomy of evil is always an anatomy of humanity. The most dignified act, the only one that can truly offer salvation in this theatre of demons, is to confront it with fearless defiance. A style rooted in oral storytelling, a language that is physical and musical; a dramatic structure alternating bursts of acceleration with moments of stillness. The weight of trauma, of wars, migration and abuse; an attentiveness to voices from the margins; reflections on the workings of power. All of this comes together in characters and stories, deeds and words, silence and thunder. Davide Enia is a singular voice in the literary landscape. A playwright and novelist, he has captured the emotion of an unforgettable football match and the anguish of migrant landings on Lampedusa, the Mafia as autobiography and History as seen from the margins of an island. This is his most ambitious, compelling and inventive novel yet.