Amanti elementari

Is it possible to tell the story of the very first love in history, when words did not yet exist?
Wary and bewildered, our apelike ancestors live in bands, defending themselves from predators and foraging for the resources they need to survive. They discover fire, mushrooms, butterflies, stars, water… It is the first time they see everything; the first time they touch everything; the first time they do everything. What they still lack to be called human are language and love. But while the former will take a long time to arrive, the latter is already present in the skirmishes and instinct-driven courtships between two individuals: the elemental lovers, protagonists of this timeless story.
Paolo Sortino has shaped an epic, primordial language, capable of inventing the world at the very moment it discovers it. An unprecedented literary challenge, rewriting the genesis of humanity through the power of literature. Everything begins when a young male, guilty of breaking the geometry of the group, is cast out by his kin. Solitude forces him to learn more: to read the light that returns after darkness, to measure the time of hunger, to distinguish the smallest signs of the natural world around him (and around all things) in order to decide whether to flee or to stay. It is here that he meets her: a wild, free female, who will not allow herself to be captured, yet little by little chooses to remain by his side. In the silence of a clearing, they discover what it means to look at one another, that hands can be used to caress, and that yielding to desire is like touching the sun itself. But can love prevail over the most ancient law of all – the law of force?
Paolo Sortino returns with a novel that – much as in Elisabeth, his debut – undertakes a climb toward the sky. Amanti elementari transforms prehistory into myth and, with an elemental and mysterious power, seizes the reader and leads them to contemplate the birth of all things. Yet this is not only the extraordinary, fierce, tender, and merciless love story at the origins of humanity. It is also the story of what we still are today: animals who seek one another, and who, in that embrace, recognize the promise of not being alone.