Presented by Lisa Allardice and produced by Tim Maby 

Nadine Gordimer reads ‘The Centaur’ by José Saramago

José Saramago tackles the conflict between mind and body in ‘The Centaur’, says Nadine Gordimer
  
  


It is in many ways a unique story. Here is a creature imagined, something that is higher and better and different from a man. Here is the dream of a creature that is half horse, half man, who has the physical fitness of a horse and the mental complexity of a man. This extraordinary fable shows the depths of the human confusion that the creature faces. It is a wonderful way of looking into the conflict between what one's body desires or dictates – sexual desire as part of our power; it's through sexual desire that you take possession, after all – and many of one's other ideals about how we ought to approach another being. There's as much in this little story as in 20 novels and 20 poems.

 

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