El antimonio

Bridge between the Sicily of the fascist era and the Spain of the Civil War, to which Sciascia always paid great attention, Antimony is the story of a Sicilian miner who, driven by economic needs, enlists as a volunteer in the ranks of the Mussolini's army to fight side by side with Franco's troops. The initiatory journey of this young man, who seeks in the trenches of a conflict that is alien to him to redeem the misery and exploitation of the mine, will reveal, on the one hand, the deepest contradictions that the war unleashes in the spirit of the combatants and, on the other, the anguished torment generated by the awareness of being fighting for the wrong cause: that is, against people of the same social condition, with the same desires and identical aspirations. From the Sicilian mysticism so characteristic of Sciascia's narrative emerges, in this vivid and powerful story, a sincere and free of prejudice gaze, capable of delving into the paradoxes, vileities and infamies of the Civil War.