Gherras, meaning "wars," and not just in the strict sense of the word. This is the title of the new work in the Sardinian language by Giuseppe Corongiu, an intellectual, writer, and longtime activist in the island's linguistic movement.
The volume, a collection of eight short stories, will be officially presented on Saturday, July 26th in Carbonia. Conflict, in Gherras, is everywhere: on the battlefields of history and science fiction, but also in living rooms, bars, families, in silences and unspoken words .
Corongiu returns with an intense and visceral narrative that delves into collective and personal pain.
The island—Sardinia—becomes a mirror of a larger world, a universal stage for a fractured civilization, where grand narratives have collapsed and hypercommunication breeds loneliness . But it is precisely in this void that the strength of the Sardinian language lies: a tool for identity, a poetic medium, a vehicle of resistance and a possibility of salvation.
The book – a work of fiction but also an existential essay – addresses themes ranging from the rape of war to the distortions of contemporary geopolitics, from the chronicle of conflicts in the Middle East to imaginary worlds dominated by the search for rare earths, and finally to disenchantment with local and global politics.
Stories set in an oppressive yet incredibly near future alternate with scenes of everyday life that conceal silent yet devastating micro-conflicts. All told in a Sardinian language that's never decorative: lively, dynamic, cultured, capable of confronting horror with depth and even irony.
Corongiu's style is relentless. Each story challenges the reader: to recognize their own reflection in the characters, to confront their fears and failures, but also to seek a way out.
There is room for catharsis, for liberation, for a different future. The individual, like the island, can save itself: not with ready-made solutions, but with awareness and authenticity. Every word in Sardinian thus becomes a key to reopening doors that seemed sealed: to memory, to hope, to the very meaning of living in community.
