Biography of Desire by Adrià Guinart is a genuine voice against sexual assault of all types. What makes the anthology stands out dozens of books with the same concern is the author has not adopted a biased approach by raising voice of female sexual assault but sexual assault of all types, even against the male gender. Biography of Desire is a concoction of experience of sexual assault of the victim himself who happens to be its author. The protagonist in the sleek yet powerful and discerning anthology yells pain suffered at the hand of such a person he should have had no reason to fear from.

The protagonist digs a broken heart who suffered sexual assault at the very hand of his own brother. He stumbles at every corner in the journey of dark life where sexual assault knows no bound, “The crowd, prostituted and slaved,” and even God is dumb in a lost paradise, with no hope of respite. He cautions everyone “Be aware of strangers!” to be safe but soon his belief turns white compelling him to say “Be aware of the known ones!” when he becomes a victim at the hand of his own blood.

The shadows of evil deeds linger in the mind of the victim as he suffered the bad stuff at a very young age. He resorted to his parents to seek compassion but got no healing except the consolatory words. This left him in ‘no-where’ world. The evil memories of torture and treachery are written across the horizon of cold sky without a hope of showers as the sky has gone dry. The protagonist sees his own relation as a ‘chemical hail’. As he grows, his pain stiffens with time, the victim recalls the pain on his body—his breathes are hard, skin bruised—which makes him writhe all his life.

But life is not that cruel, his ‘temporary hell’ is over and the ‘cloud of depression’ disperses. There is a silver line of hope; he yearns for love from his parents. The first hand experience seconds the fact that the accused in sexual assault is generally those who have close proximity to the victims. This angle demands ears.