The Latin title (‘On the question of Centaurs’) mimics a learned treatise and promises a narrative of classification, what is a centaur? We are told of the centaur’s extraordinary physiognomy, exhausting eating habits and mythical origins, which substitute the dull two-by-two of Noah’s ark with a period of wild desire, fecundity and mixing of all kinds. But Trachi, the centaur in the story, exists in a recognisable, non-magical world where he is constrained and nearly invisible. He is owned by the narrator’s father and lives in a stable, though he has human friends who value his wisdom. As the narrative unfolds, we realise that this is a story about the terrible violence of classification. It may well be the most beautiful story I’ve ever read.
First published in Italian in Storie Naturali, 1966. Published in English in The New Yorker in 2015. Collected in The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories edited by Jhumpa Lahiri. Listen to Lahiri reading the story here
A Personal Anthology 