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The Short Cut by Ennio Flaiano is a book available to read on EtoBox.

What is The Short Cut about?

This fine novel, Flaiano's only full-length work of fiction, was published under the title Tempo di uccidere in 1947 and won that year's Strega Prize. Translated into English it appeared as The Short Cut in the United States in 1950. Since then, it may be ventured, the course of our national affairs has only rendered us that much more able to appreciate the plight of the young Italian officer whose story the book tells. We are in Abyssinia during that helpless country's conquest in 1935 and 1936 by a major European power. . . . Bothered by a toothache, the hero, on his way to the base in search of a dentist, takes a short cut through a sinister valley, loses his way, comes upon a native woman bathing in a stream. She submits to him; he stays with her; day ends. During the night he fires at what he imagines is a marauding animal; the bullet ricochets, strikes the woman, mortally wounds her. Unsure what to do, unable to go for help - , he shoots her while she lies sleeping. The rest of The Short Cut records the lieutenant's efforts to evade and reason away responsibility, even to assuage guilt by committing another crime, but at last to recognize that the long chain of chance circums

Author
Ennio Flaiano
Publisher
Marlboro Press, Incorporated, The
Published
1992
Language
EN
ISBN
9781568970196
Subjects
Literary Fiction, Romance, Humanities
Rating
3.92 / 5 (49 ratings)
Updated
2026-03-14

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