Without Blood

Book excerpt: SOON TO BE A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE • From the author of the acclaimed international bestseller Silk, an unforgettable fable about the brutality of war – and one girl's quest for revenge and healing. “Baricco continues to blend the best elements of cinema and poetry. . . . Without Blood applies the delicacy of Baricco's style to dark territory: war, human cruelty and revenge” —San Franciso Chronicle When – in an unnamed place and time – Manuel Roca's enemies hunt him down to kill him, they fail to discover Nina, his youngest child, hidden in a hole beneath his farmhouse floor. After this carnage Tito, one of the murderers, discovers Nina's trapdoor. Enthralled by the sight of Nina's perfect innocence, he keeps quiet. By the time she has grown up, Nina's innocence will have bloomed into something else altogether, and one by one the wartime hunters will become the peacetime hunted. But not until a striking old woman calls upon a familiar old man selling newspapers in town can we know what Nina will ultimately make of her brutal legacy.