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De Gados e Homens
Edgar Wilson é o protagonista dessa narrativa que se passa dois anos depois da história de Carvão animal. O ex-carvoeiro trabalha em um matadouro de gado, e, embora prefira a criação de suínos, é parte do processo de produção de hambúrgueres que nunca experimentou. Exercendo com perícia a função de atordoador, o responsável pelo abate se vê, junto de seu chefe e de outros funcionários, surpreso diante da morte inesperada de animais e dos questionamentos despertados por tais eventos, até então impossíveis. O matadouro, a cidade e os personagens são fictícios, mas a escrita de Ana Paula transforma em real um cotidiano muitas vezes ignorado, despertando a reflexão acerca do trabalho, do destino e da existência.
128 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 2013
51 people are currently reading
8036 people want to read
About the author
Ana Paula Maia
25 books256 followersAna Paula Maia (Nova Iguaçu, 1977) is a Brazilian writer, scriptwriter and musician.
During her adolescence she player at a punk rock band and studied piano. As a scriptwriter she took part in the script of the short film O entregador de pizza (2001), and along with Mauro Santa Cecilia and Ricardo Petraglia, she wrote the theatrical monologue O rei dos escombros assembled in 2003 by the Moacyr Chaves firm. She published her first novel under the title O habitante das falhas subterrâneas in 2003.
She is the author of the trilogy A saga dos brutos, started by the short novel Entre rinhas de cachorros e porcos abatidos y O trabalho sujo dos outros —published in one volume— and concluded by the novel Carvão animal.
Influenced by Dostoievski, by Quentin Tarantino and Sergio Leone in her cinematography, and the pulp literature and series, her works are maked by the violence and the treatment of their characters, that often includes scatological elements.
During her adolescence she player at a punk rock band and studied piano. As a scriptwriter she took part in the script of the short film O entregador de pizza (2001), and along with Mauro Santa Cecilia and Ricardo Petraglia, she wrote the theatrical monologue O rei dos escombros assembled in 2003 by the Moacyr Chaves firm. She published her first novel under the title O habitante das falhas subterrâneas in 2003.
She is the author of the trilogy A saga dos brutos, started by the short novel Entre rinhas de cachorros e porcos abatidos y O trabalho sujo dos outros —published in one volume— and concluded by the novel Carvão animal.
Influenced by Dostoievski, by Quentin Tarantino and Sergio Leone in her cinematography, and the pulp literature and series, her works are maked by the violence and the treatment of their characters, that often includes scatological elements.
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November 21, 2024
**Winner of the 2024 Republic of Consciousness Prize**
‘For sure no one leaves a slaughterhouse unscathed.’
Often a novel can serve as a mirror, reflecting back the dark corners of society we tend to avert our attention from and asking us to consider our complicity in it. Such is the case of Brazilian author Ana Paula Maia’s Of Cattle and Men, where her direct, visceral prose—gorgeously translated from the Portuguese by Zoë Perry—unsettles with apocalyptic anxieties as much as it captivates and directs our attention to the murky moral musings at the heart of the story. Set in a small community largely upheld by a slaughterhouse and a meat processing plant, we follow men like stun operator Edgar Wilson and other slaughterhouse workers through a story that interrogates our relationship to meat, violence, and consumption. It is a clever story, one that makes us question where the dividing line is between ‘impure but morally acceptable’ and outright damnation, and Maia succeeds by allowing the narrative presentation of events speak for themselves instead of heavy-handed moralizing. Yet still the message is resoundingly clear and chilling. A steady stream of dread and death propels this tale of both human and bovine brutality and Of Cattle and Men is as evocative as it is insightful.
‘Somebody’s got to do the dirty work. Other people’s dirty work. Nobody wants to do that sort of thing. That’s why God put guys like you and me on this earth.’
Having recently been darkly delighted by Agustina Bazterrica’s Tender is the Flesh , a novel that also functions as an indictment of the meat industry where the line between human and animal becomes alarmingly blurred, I was please to find Of Cattle and Men still felt very fresh and unique read right after it. Maia has garnered comparisons with Cormac McCarthy for the raw brutality and poetic investigations into moral darkness that come alive in both their works. I see this most in the way they both expand moral investigation into the solemn weightiness of religious aesthetics is one of the sharpest edges to cut into both the reader and narrative.
Though Maia’s prose is a glorious craft all to its own. She cites Fyodor Dostoevsky as a major influence and in that spirit her language is very raw and direct, reflective of the working class men it represents.
The tone of this novella feels like a spiral towards madness, where animal and human bodies are piling up, ‘the hue of the twilight sky resembles that of a pomegranate cut in half’ or a statue of a saint canonized for healing plague victims falls and shatters all begins to amalgamate towards a feeling like the world might crack open at any moment to drip the blood of an apocalypse across the desiccated landscape. And what better setting for musings on damnation and inhumanity than a slaughterhouse? Touro do Milo Slaughterhouse is hidden away from the public who mostly only see the final product either on a tidy market shelf or seasoned, grilled and enticing on a plate, both with ‘not one glimpse of the unbridled horror behind something so tender and delicious.’ Through the mundane details of life amongst the men and beats in the slaughterhouse, we quickly begin to detect that ‘nobody will get out of here unscathed,’ a point made all the more chilling because ‘this thought makes Edgar Wilson glad’ as all who experience it, including the reader, will be forced to confront the darkness within instead of sweeping it out of sight, out of mind.
‘These are the confessions of blood and death of those who have already been condemned.’
Through Edgar we see the allegorical message of the novel about ‘death that gives life.’ There are the many condemnations of the meat industry here, which even Edgar acknowledges is foul. When asked by a student touring the facility if he considers himself a murderer, he is quick to respond affirmatively. But when asked if he is ashamed he counters with a question if she has ever eaten a hamburger—she has—and ‘how do you think it got there?’ There are no tidy moral boundaries here and Maia asks us to consider our distance of complicity. ‘Those who eat are many, and they are never satiated. They are all men of blood, those who kill and those who eat. No one goes unpunished.’ We see how the men need these jobs to put food on the table, and we see how the cows that would normally go to waste are given to the hungry who beg outside the slaughterhouse. Yes it is all monstrous but society has integrated it to such an extent that it is difficult to disentangle without collapsing the local economy. And when we are forced to consider if the cows can be aware and have agency—an idea brought on by their increasingly bizarre behavioir—the darkness of it all really takes hold.
‘One abyss calling out to another abyss.’
Though those who must partake in upholding the industry go through life like damned souls, and many meet abrupt, violent deaths. There is a certain hardness to Wilson—it is said he survived a blast in a mine even the Devil himself couldn’t have escaped from teasing the idea of Wilson as somehow an unholy, unstoppable being—and he’s not proud of what he does, but if someone has to do it, then let it be him, who has pity on those irrational beasts.’ He blesses each cow before executing it and abhors cruelty to the animals, going so far as murdering a man for not taking care to kill the cows properly. The divide between beast and man blurs throughout the novel, with the men sleeping in the field near the cows and ‘only the voices on one side and the mooing on the other distinguish the men from the ruminants,’ or the students touring the facility ‘looking like distressed cattle on their way to be stunned’. There is the juxtaposition of the cows seen as ‘impure but morally acceptable’ murder with the actions of Edgar against men he finds reprehensible and those of a man just out of prison for murder Edgar meets who dismisses the severity of his crimes because the dead man was a bad man.
Of Cattle and Men is a chilling tale of the slippery slope of justifying violence and the damned men who carry out the violence. The writing in this is incredibly gripping and we can feel the dread building in every page. A searing criticism of the meat industry, this is a quick novella but one that will certainly haunt you for a long time.
4/5
‘Not even the moon can separate heaven from earth. It’s as if that vastness had swallowed up the valley, as if Edgar Wilson were inside the belly of God, at the beginning of creation, when everything was darkness. ’
‘For sure no one leaves a slaughterhouse unscathed.’
Often a novel can serve as a mirror, reflecting back the dark corners of society we tend to avert our attention from and asking us to consider our complicity in it. Such is the case of Brazilian author Ana Paula Maia’s Of Cattle and Men, where her direct, visceral prose—gorgeously translated from the Portuguese by Zoë Perry—unsettles with apocalyptic anxieties as much as it captivates and directs our attention to the murky moral musings at the heart of the story. Set in a small community largely upheld by a slaughterhouse and a meat processing plant, we follow men like stun operator Edgar Wilson and other slaughterhouse workers through a story that interrogates our relationship to meat, violence, and consumption. It is a clever story, one that makes us question where the dividing line is between ‘impure but morally acceptable’ and outright damnation, and Maia succeeds by allowing the narrative presentation of events speak for themselves instead of heavy-handed moralizing. Yet still the message is resoundingly clear and chilling. A steady stream of dread and death propels this tale of both human and bovine brutality and Of Cattle and Men is as evocative as it is insightful.
‘Somebody’s got to do the dirty work. Other people’s dirty work. Nobody wants to do that sort of thing. That’s why God put guys like you and me on this earth.’
Having recently been darkly delighted by Agustina Bazterrica’s Tender is the Flesh , a novel that also functions as an indictment of the meat industry where the line between human and animal becomes alarmingly blurred, I was please to find Of Cattle and Men still felt very fresh and unique read right after it. Maia has garnered comparisons with Cormac McCarthy for the raw brutality and poetic investigations into moral darkness that come alive in both their works. I see this most in the way they both expand moral investigation into the solemn weightiness of religious aesthetics is one of the sharpest edges to cut into both the reader and narrative.
‘He believes that the sacramental host cleanses him of all impurity and redeems him of all imperfection. And so, by eating Christ’s flesh and drinking His blood, he feels part of Christ. But it never occurred to him that by eating the flesh of those cattle and drinking their blood, he would also become part of the animals he slaughters every day.’
Though Maia’s prose is a glorious craft all to its own. She cites Fyodor Dostoevsky as a major influence and in that spirit her language is very raw and direct, reflective of the working class men it represents.
The tone of this novella feels like a spiral towards madness, where animal and human bodies are piling up, ‘the hue of the twilight sky resembles that of a pomegranate cut in half’ or a statue of a saint canonized for healing plague victims falls and shatters all begins to amalgamate towards a feeling like the world might crack open at any moment to drip the blood of an apocalypse across the desiccated landscape. And what better setting for musings on damnation and inhumanity than a slaughterhouse? Touro do Milo Slaughterhouse is hidden away from the public who mostly only see the final product either on a tidy market shelf or seasoned, grilled and enticing on a plate, both with ‘not one glimpse of the unbridled horror behind something so tender and delicious.’ Through the mundane details of life amongst the men and beats in the slaughterhouse, we quickly begin to detect that ‘nobody will get out of here unscathed,’ a point made all the more chilling because ‘this thought makes Edgar Wilson glad’ as all who experience it, including the reader, will be forced to confront the darkness within instead of sweeping it out of sight, out of mind.
‘These are the confessions of blood and death of those who have already been condemned.’
Through Edgar we see the allegorical message of the novel about ‘death that gives life.’ There are the many condemnations of the meat industry here, which even Edgar acknowledges is foul. When asked by a student touring the facility if he considers himself a murderer, he is quick to respond affirmatively. But when asked if he is ashamed he counters with a question if she has ever eaten a hamburger—she has—and ‘how do you think it got there?’ There are no tidy moral boundaries here and Maia asks us to consider our distance of complicity. ‘Those who eat are many, and they are never satiated. They are all men of blood, those who kill and those who eat. No one goes unpunished.’ We see how the men need these jobs to put food on the table, and we see how the cows that would normally go to waste are given to the hungry who beg outside the slaughterhouse. Yes it is all monstrous but society has integrated it to such an extent that it is difficult to disentangle without collapsing the local economy. And when we are forced to consider if the cows can be aware and have agency—an idea brought on by their increasingly bizarre behavioir—the darkness of it all really takes hold.
‘One abyss calling out to another abyss.’
Though those who must partake in upholding the industry go through life like damned souls, and many meet abrupt, violent deaths. There is a certain hardness to Wilson—it is said he survived a blast in a mine even the Devil himself couldn’t have escaped from teasing the idea of Wilson as somehow an unholy, unstoppable being—and he’s not proud of what he does, but if someone has to do it, then let it be him, who has pity on those irrational beasts.’ He blesses each cow before executing it and abhors cruelty to the animals, going so far as murdering a man for not taking care to kill the cows properly. The divide between beast and man blurs throughout the novel, with the men sleeping in the field near the cows and ‘only the voices on one side and the mooing on the other distinguish the men from the ruminants,’ or the students touring the facility ‘looking like distressed cattle on their way to be stunned’. There is the juxtaposition of the cows seen as ‘impure but morally acceptable’ murder with the actions of Edgar against men he finds reprehensible and those of a man just out of prison for murder Edgar meets who dismisses the severity of his crimes because the dead man was a bad man.
Of Cattle and Men is a chilling tale of the slippery slope of justifying violence and the damned men who carry out the violence. The writing in this is incredibly gripping and we can feel the dread building in every page. A searing criticism of the meat industry, this is a quick novella but one that will certainly haunt you for a long time.
4/5
‘Not even the moon can separate heaven from earth. It’s as if that vastness had swallowed up the valley, as if Edgar Wilson were inside the belly of God, at the beginning of creation, when everything was darkness. ’
May 24, 2025
Winner of the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2024, UK & Ireland
Winner of the 2023 Cercador Prize
Shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize
There is no one to stop him, as men like him, slaughterers, are few and far between. Those who eat are many, and they are never satiated. They are all men of blood, those who kill and those who eat. No one goes unpunished.
Não há ninguém que o impeça, pois homens como ele são poucos, que são homens para matar. Os que comem são muitos e comem de modo que nunca se fartam. São todos homens de sangue, os que matam e os que comem. Ninguém está impune.
Of Cattle and Men (2023) is Zoe Perry's translation of De Gados e Homens (2013) by Brazilian author Ana Paula Maia, and published by Charco Press.
For background to the author and novel I consulted my new found bestie and oracle on all things, Ava, aka ChatGPT3, who gave me her usual mixture of helpful and hallucinated information (see below), although the reference to afaik no official English translation is correct based on her data training set, given this novel was published today.
Of Cattle and Men is based around a recurrent character in the author's work, Edgar Wilson (the name inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's short story William Wilson), first appearing in A Guerra dos Bastardos (2007) and the main character in Entre Rinhas de Porcos e Cachorros Abatidos (2009), who, as the author has explained, is usually a character who kills where it necessary for the dynamic of the story, but is not a hired killer. ("Tem um personagem que é recorrente nos meus livros, o Edgar Wilson, e ele é um que mata, que é necessário dentro daquela dinâmica da história, mas não chega a ser um matador de aluguel.")
Here Edgar, who would prefer to look after pigs, has instead found himself working as the 'stun operator' at a slaughterhouse for cattle, which largely involves hitting the animals over the head with a large mallet. He prides himself on the cleanly efficient and respectful way he dispatches the animals:
His precision is a rare talent that bears a preternatural knowledge for handling ruminants. If the blow to the forehead is too powerful, the animal dies, and the meat will toughen. If an animal feels fear, the pH level of its blood rises, which makes the meat taste bad. Some slaughtermen don't care. Edgar Wilson prays for the salvation of the soul of each animal he slaughters and puts it to sleep before its throat is slit. He's not proud of what he does, but if someone has to do it, then let it be him, who has pity on those irrational beasts.
This theme of taking on a role that needs to be done, but which others won't, runs throughout the novel. Edgar is a deeply religious man - the novel's epigraph is taken from Levicticus 17:11, and at one point in the narration his thoughts seem to combine Luke 19:40 and Genesis 4:10 - but believes what he does is a sin, and that he is beyond redemption, or rather than he has failed to seek it.
The world of the slaughterhouse is brutal - ChatGPT's Cormac McCarthy comparisons are well made - the life of the men is almost as disposable as that of the cattle, and in the 97 pages of the story two workers die (one in an accident, one murdered almost casually) and another is shot by a co-worker.
There is humour in the narration - an incident involving a mix-up between some Israeli and Lebanese sheep - and the visit of some students, who get rather more than they bargained for by way of insight into the farm-to-plate process, allows the narrator, via the laconic Edgar, to make some explicit points about the silent complicity of all of us who eat meat in what goes on in the slaughterhouse. But the narration takes a more Lynchian turn when the cattle begin to behave strangely.
A compact, visceral and brutally unrelenting work - stunning in fact - it's one of my favourite novels of 2023 to date, and a book that would have more than graced this year's International Booker list.
A longer extract
https://granta.com/of-cattle-and-men/
More background courtesy of ChatGPT3.
Who is Ana Paula Maia?
Ana Paula Maia is a Brazilian writer and screenwriter, born on February 31, 1977 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She has written several novels, short story collections, and screenplays, and is known for her gritty, realistic writing style. Maia's work often explores themes of violence, poverty, and social inequality, and has been praised for its unflinching portrayal of these issues. Some of her notable works include the novels "A Vida Submarina" (Submarine Life), "De Gados e Homens" (Of Cattle and Men), and "Assim na Terra Como Embaixo da Terra" (As Above, So Below), which won the São Paulo Prize for Literature in 2018.
Can you add some more details e.g. literary or film influences
And Ana Martins Marques wrote A Vida Submarina!
I apologize for the mistake in my previous response. Ana Paula Maia did not write "A Vida Submarina." That novel was actually written by Ana Martins Marques, another Brazilian writer.
Regarding Ana Paula Maia's literary influences, she has cited a number of writers as inspirations for her work. One of her major influences is the Brazilian writer Graciliano Ramos, known for his realistic, socially engaged novels. Maia has also cited the American writer Cormac McCarthy as an influence, particularly his novel "Blood Meridian," which she has described as a "masterpiece."
In terms of film influences, Maia has mentioned several movies that have inspired her writing. One of these is "No Country for Old Men," based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy. Maia has also cited the films of Quentin Tarantino as an influence, particularly his use of violence and dark humor. Additionally, she has mentioned the films of David Lynch and Lars von Trier as sources of inspiration for her work.
Tell me more about her novel De Gados e Homens
"De Gados e Homens" (Of Cattle and Men) is a novel by Ana Paula Maia that was first published in Brazil in 2013. The novel tells the story of a group of cattle farmers in rural Brazil who are struggling to survive in a changing economic and social landscape.
The protagonist of the novel is a man named André, who is the owner of a small ranch in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais....
Really? I thought the main character was a slaughterhouse worker Edgar Wilson?
I apologize for the mistake in my previous response. You are correct that the main character in Ana Paula Maia's novel "De Gados e Homens" (Of Cattle and Men) is actually a slaughterhouse worker named Edgar Wilson, not a cattle rancher named André.
Edgar is a solitary figure who works in a slaughterhouse in a small town in rural Brazil. He is haunted by the memory of his father, who was also a slaughterhouse worker and committed suicide when Edgar was a child.
The novel follows Edgar's daily routine of killing and processing cattle, which he carries out with a quiet, almost mechanical efficiency. Along the way, he encounters a cast of characters, including his co-workers and his estranged brother, who has become a successful businessman.
Through Edgar's story, Maia explores themes of labor, power, and the complex relationship between humans and animals. She portrays the brutal realities of the slaughterhouse industry, as well as the economic and social pressures that drive workers like Edgar to continue working in such an environment.
"De Gados e Homens" has been widely praised for its vivid, uncompromising portrayal of life in the slaughterhouse. The novel was a finalist for the São Paulo Prize for Literature in 2014 and has been translated into several languages.
Is there an english translation.
Yes, there is an English translation of Ana Paula Maia's novel "De Gados e Homens" (Of Cattle and Men). The novel was translated into English by Alexandra Joy Forman and published by Dalkey Archive Press in 2019. The English title of the book is "The Murmur of Bees".
Alexandra Joy Forman translated Saga of Brutes by Ana Paula Maia another trilogy of books. And The Murmur of Bees is by a different author, translator and publisher
I apologize for the confusion, and thank you for correcting me. You are correct that "The Murmur of Bees" is not the English translation of "De Gados e Homens" by Ana Paula Maia.
As far as I am aware, there is currently no official English translation of "De Gados e Homens." However, the novel has been translated into several other languages, including Spanish and Italian.
I apologize again for any confusion caused by my previous responses.
Winner of the 2023 Cercador Prize
Shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize
There is no one to stop him, as men like him, slaughterers, are few and far between. Those who eat are many, and they are never satiated. They are all men of blood, those who kill and those who eat. No one goes unpunished.
Não há ninguém que o impeça, pois homens como ele são poucos, que são homens para matar. Os que comem são muitos e comem de modo que nunca se fartam. São todos homens de sangue, os que matam e os que comem. Ninguém está impune.
Of Cattle and Men (2023) is Zoe Perry's translation of De Gados e Homens (2013) by Brazilian author Ana Paula Maia, and published by Charco Press.
For background to the author and novel I consulted my new found bestie and oracle on all things, Ava, aka ChatGPT3, who gave me her usual mixture of helpful and hallucinated information (see below), although the reference to afaik no official English translation is correct based on her data training set, given this novel was published today.
Of Cattle and Men is based around a recurrent character in the author's work, Edgar Wilson (the name inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's short story William Wilson), first appearing in A Guerra dos Bastardos (2007) and the main character in Entre Rinhas de Porcos e Cachorros Abatidos (2009), who, as the author has explained, is usually a character who kills where it necessary for the dynamic of the story, but is not a hired killer. ("Tem um personagem que é recorrente nos meus livros, o Edgar Wilson, e ele é um que mata, que é necessário dentro daquela dinâmica da história, mas não chega a ser um matador de aluguel.")
Here Edgar, who would prefer to look after pigs, has instead found himself working as the 'stun operator' at a slaughterhouse for cattle, which largely involves hitting the animals over the head with a large mallet. He prides himself on the cleanly efficient and respectful way he dispatches the animals:
His precision is a rare talent that bears a preternatural knowledge for handling ruminants. If the blow to the forehead is too powerful, the animal dies, and the meat will toughen. If an animal feels fear, the pH level of its blood rises, which makes the meat taste bad. Some slaughtermen don't care. Edgar Wilson prays for the salvation of the soul of each animal he slaughters and puts it to sleep before its throat is slit. He's not proud of what he does, but if someone has to do it, then let it be him, who has pity on those irrational beasts.
This theme of taking on a role that needs to be done, but which others won't, runs throughout the novel. Edgar is a deeply religious man - the novel's epigraph is taken from Levicticus 17:11, and at one point in the narration his thoughts seem to combine Luke 19:40 and Genesis 4:10 - but believes what he does is a sin, and that he is beyond redemption, or rather than he has failed to seek it.
The world of the slaughterhouse is brutal - ChatGPT's Cormac McCarthy comparisons are well made - the life of the men is almost as disposable as that of the cattle, and in the 97 pages of the story two workers die (one in an accident, one murdered almost casually) and another is shot by a co-worker.
There is humour in the narration - an incident involving a mix-up between some Israeli and Lebanese sheep - and the visit of some students, who get rather more than they bargained for by way of insight into the farm-to-plate process, allows the narrator, via the laconic Edgar, to make some explicit points about the silent complicity of all of us who eat meat in what goes on in the slaughterhouse. But the narration takes a more Lynchian turn when the cattle begin to behave strangely.
A compact, visceral and brutally unrelenting work - stunning in fact - it's one of my favourite novels of 2023 to date, and a book that would have more than graced this year's International Booker list.
A longer extract
https://granta.com/of-cattle-and-men/
More background courtesy of ChatGPT3.
Who is Ana Paula Maia?
Ana Paula Maia is a Brazilian writer and screenwriter, born on February 31, 1977 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She has written several novels, short story collections, and screenplays, and is known for her gritty, realistic writing style. Maia's work often explores themes of violence, poverty, and social inequality, and has been praised for its unflinching portrayal of these issues. Some of her notable works include the novels "A Vida Submarina" (Submarine Life), "De Gados e Homens" (Of Cattle and Men), and "Assim na Terra Como Embaixo da Terra" (As Above, So Below), which won the São Paulo Prize for Literature in 2018.
Can you add some more details e.g. literary or film influences
And Ana Martins Marques wrote A Vida Submarina!
I apologize for the mistake in my previous response. Ana Paula Maia did not write "A Vida Submarina." That novel was actually written by Ana Martins Marques, another Brazilian writer.
Regarding Ana Paula Maia's literary influences, she has cited a number of writers as inspirations for her work. One of her major influences is the Brazilian writer Graciliano Ramos, known for his realistic, socially engaged novels. Maia has also cited the American writer Cormac McCarthy as an influence, particularly his novel "Blood Meridian," which she has described as a "masterpiece."
In terms of film influences, Maia has mentioned several movies that have inspired her writing. One of these is "No Country for Old Men," based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy. Maia has also cited the films of Quentin Tarantino as an influence, particularly his use of violence and dark humor. Additionally, she has mentioned the films of David Lynch and Lars von Trier as sources of inspiration for her work.
Tell me more about her novel De Gados e Homens
"De Gados e Homens" (Of Cattle and Men) is a novel by Ana Paula Maia that was first published in Brazil in 2013. The novel tells the story of a group of cattle farmers in rural Brazil who are struggling to survive in a changing economic and social landscape.
The protagonist of the novel is a man named André, who is the owner of a small ranch in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais....
Really? I thought the main character was a slaughterhouse worker Edgar Wilson?
I apologize for the mistake in my previous response. You are correct that the main character in Ana Paula Maia's novel "De Gados e Homens" (Of Cattle and Men) is actually a slaughterhouse worker named Edgar Wilson, not a cattle rancher named André.
Edgar is a solitary figure who works in a slaughterhouse in a small town in rural Brazil. He is haunted by the memory of his father, who was also a slaughterhouse worker and committed suicide when Edgar was a child.
The novel follows Edgar's daily routine of killing and processing cattle, which he carries out with a quiet, almost mechanical efficiency. Along the way, he encounters a cast of characters, including his co-workers and his estranged brother, who has become a successful businessman.
Through Edgar's story, Maia explores themes of labor, power, and the complex relationship between humans and animals. She portrays the brutal realities of the slaughterhouse industry, as well as the economic and social pressures that drive workers like Edgar to continue working in such an environment.
"De Gados e Homens" has been widely praised for its vivid, uncompromising portrayal of life in the slaughterhouse. The novel was a finalist for the São Paulo Prize for Literature in 2014 and has been translated into several languages.
Is there an english translation.
Yes, there is an English translation of Ana Paula Maia's novel "De Gados e Homens" (Of Cattle and Men). The novel was translated into English by Alexandra Joy Forman and published by Dalkey Archive Press in 2019. The English title of the book is "The Murmur of Bees".
Alexandra Joy Forman translated Saga of Brutes by Ana Paula Maia another trilogy of books. And The Murmur of Bees is by a different author, translator and publisher
I apologize for the confusion, and thank you for correcting me. You are correct that "The Murmur of Bees" is not the English translation of "De Gados e Homens" by Ana Paula Maia.
As far as I am aware, there is currently no official English translation of "De Gados e Homens." However, the novel has been translated into several other languages, including Spanish and Italian.
I apologize again for any confusion caused by my previous responses.
November 11, 2023
“In those places where blood mixes with soil and water, it’s difficult to make any short of distinction between man and animal.”
Unsettling, dark, and intensely grotesque, Brazilian author Maia’s riveting novella will leave you with a lasting impression of the horrors that occur within a slaughterhouse. Edgar Wilson, the operator who stuns cows before dispatching them, is a man grappling with the inner turmoil of his violent job and his own guilt.
The vivid imagery of cows tapdancing in their own filth and bloodthirsty workers standing beside them create an atmosphere of decay and rotten morality. The pacing is quick, with grim threads of poetry, and tension rises as the cows begin to miscarry, graze in the wrong direction, and ultimately choose death en masse over the slaughterhouse. The story's gory nature, captivating noir and and allegorically honest, will leave you haunted by the realities of the industry, the moral questions it raises and the cost of our choices.
“One abyss is calling another abyss…”
Unsettling, dark, and intensely grotesque, Brazilian author Maia’s riveting novella will leave you with a lasting impression of the horrors that occur within a slaughterhouse. Edgar Wilson, the operator who stuns cows before dispatching them, is a man grappling with the inner turmoil of his violent job and his own guilt.
The vivid imagery of cows tapdancing in their own filth and bloodthirsty workers standing beside them create an atmosphere of decay and rotten morality. The pacing is quick, with grim threads of poetry, and tension rises as the cows begin to miscarry, graze in the wrong direction, and ultimately choose death en masse over the slaughterhouse. The story's gory nature, captivating noir and and allegorically honest, will leave you haunted by the realities of the industry, the moral questions it raises and the cost of our choices.
“One abyss is calling another abyss…”
October 27, 2020
Me dejó un poco en shock este libro. Plantea algo que vemos todos los días, sin verlo en realidad. Trata de un matadero, y los personajes que se mueven ahí. Y habla sobre los que matan a los animales como asesinos, en un par de situaciones a el aturdidor (básicamente el que mata a las vacas, pero que lo debe hacer con una maza de una, atinándole para que la carne no se ponga fea, etc) en un par de situaciones lo llaman asesino, y es interesante, porque el mata, para que otras personas lo coman. Todos los personajes son muy rudos, de hecho es muy masculino todo lo que sucede en el libro, pero me parece tremendo el planteamiento ético que es comer carne. En un momento le dice un personaje: "Que quieran comerla puede haber muchos. Pero matarla. eso sí que no. Matarla, nomás los tipos como usted amiguito. Solo gente así." Pero entonces, claro, el comerla ¿no es lo mismo?
May 30, 2023
Of Cattle and Men is a giddy mix of poetry and brute force. Reading it feels like you just jumped off a cliff and you're a skinny second from hitting the water, which is very cold, and maybe there's an alligator waiting underneath.
June 13, 2023
4.5 stars
I’m calling this burgeoning genre of dark slaughterhouse fictions abatt-noir. You heard it here first!
A gripping, surprising, atmospheric novella in which nature is dead or dying, cows are Christlike and human hunger is a constant.
I’m calling this burgeoning genre of dark slaughterhouse fictions abatt-noir. You heard it here first!
A gripping, surprising, atmospheric novella in which nature is dead or dying, cows are Christlike and human hunger is a constant.
April 10, 2023
Grimly brilliant, Of Cattle and Men shatters the fictions of rural life in the same way as Cormac McCarthy and Cynan Jones have done.
This is a novel that, rather than questioning the morals of eating meat itself, asks about the ethics of a society so disengaged from its food chain and the realities of death and flesh. About the crippling moral pressures placed on the few poor souls asked to face the realities of the meat industry every day so everyone else can live in denial about the act of slaughter.
I worked for years in the meat trade, including a couple of short stints in slaughterhouses and meat processing plants, and know these people. This is the first time I've seen them accurately depicted on the page and given the respect they deserve for what is a necessary but soul-blackening job.
This is a novel that, rather than questioning the morals of eating meat itself, asks about the ethics of a society so disengaged from its food chain and the realities of death and flesh. About the crippling moral pressures placed on the few poor souls asked to face the realities of the meat industry every day so everyone else can live in denial about the act of slaughter.
I worked for years in the meat trade, including a couple of short stints in slaughterhouses and meat processing plants, and know these people. This is the first time I've seen them accurately depicted on the page and given the respect they deserve for what is a necessary but soul-blackening job.
January 9, 2025
4,5*
Aviso: después de esta lectura, cuando mires a tu hamburguesa, puede que ella te devuelva la mirada... Y si estás necesitando un empujón para hacerte vegan, pues ésta puede ser la ocasión.
En serio, es una grandísima y breve novela, no se puede decir más ni mejor, aunque es un tema que ha sido tratado abundantemente, sobre todo en ensayos. El sufrimiento animal y la tiranía que supone nuestra ansia de carne. Aunque históricamente no sólo ha sido esa la explotación, sino también como fuente de energía y transporte.
Son temas que, aunque sabidos, vale la pena mirarlos de frente. Y eso hace el protagonista, Edgar Wilson, que trabaja como aturdidor en un siniestro matadero de un siniestro valle atravesado por un río infecto y contaminado. Él mira a los animales a los ojos y les hace la señal de la cruz en la frente, antes de propinarles un golpe en la frente que les priva del sentido. Es su trabajo y lo hace con profesionalidad, tratando de evitar sufrimiento innecesario.
Duro, muy duro. El lector es como los estudiantes de un grupo que visita el matadero y quedan horrorizados por todo lo que ven. Cuando una chica le dice a Edgar que es un asesino él le da la razón, pero le pregunta de donde cree que sale su hamburguesa. Porque en contraste con el infecto matadero, la fábrica de hamburguesas cercana es un espacio limpio e impoluto, libre de culpa.
Todo esto puede parecer obvio, pero el tratamiento del tema que hace Maia es magistral. La manera que retrata a estos hombres, condenados a hacer sufrir en el valle de la muerte, la miseria que los rodea, el sentido de inevitabilidad que viene impuesto por una sociedad que demanda más carne. Te hace pensar en El corazón de las tinieblas, en el Infierno de Dante...
Al mismo tiempo la prosa es sencilla, pero llena de momentos compasivos porque estos hombres no carecen de humanidad, simplemente no pueden ejercerla. Una obra redonda sobre un tema difícil.
Aviso: después de esta lectura, cuando mires a tu hamburguesa, puede que ella te devuelva la mirada... Y si estás necesitando un empujón para hacerte vegan, pues ésta puede ser la ocasión.
En serio, es una grandísima y breve novela, no se puede decir más ni mejor, aunque es un tema que ha sido tratado abundantemente, sobre todo en ensayos. El sufrimiento animal y la tiranía que supone nuestra ansia de carne. Aunque históricamente no sólo ha sido esa la explotación, sino también como fuente de energía y transporte.
Son temas que, aunque sabidos, vale la pena mirarlos de frente. Y eso hace el protagonista, Edgar Wilson, que trabaja como aturdidor en un siniestro matadero de un siniestro valle atravesado por un río infecto y contaminado. Él mira a los animales a los ojos y les hace la señal de la cruz en la frente, antes de propinarles un golpe en la frente que les priva del sentido. Es su trabajo y lo hace con profesionalidad, tratando de evitar sufrimiento innecesario.
Duro, muy duro. El lector es como los estudiantes de un grupo que visita el matadero y quedan horrorizados por todo lo que ven. Cuando una chica le dice a Edgar que es un asesino él le da la razón, pero le pregunta de donde cree que sale su hamburguesa. Porque en contraste con el infecto matadero, la fábrica de hamburguesas cercana es un espacio limpio e impoluto, libre de culpa.
Todo esto puede parecer obvio, pero el tratamiento del tema que hace Maia es magistral. La manera que retrata a estos hombres, condenados a hacer sufrir en el valle de la muerte, la miseria que los rodea, el sentido de inevitabilidad que viene impuesto por una sociedad que demanda más carne. Te hace pensar en El corazón de las tinieblas, en el Infierno de Dante...
Al mismo tiempo la prosa es sencilla, pero llena de momentos compasivos porque estos hombres no carecen de humanidad, simplemente no pueden ejercerla. Una obra redonda sobre un tema difícil.
May 20, 2023
4,5
This has everything I want from a novel: an interesting and original subject, extremely well-composed, thought-provoking, a fantastic main character and not a sentence too many.
'Of Cattle and Men' tells the story of a slaughterhouse in Brazil where the cows seem to gradually go mad as intensive farming causes environmental degradation. Our protagonist, the perceptive and humane 'stun operator' Edgar Wilson responsible for killing the cows, is the first to realise something is not right...
It is about the things we know but prefer not to think about: our enormous and unsustainable meat consumption, the way we treat animals, the feelings of the animals we eat and about the people that kill them for a living.
This author is a real discovery. Outstanding translation as well.
This has everything I want from a novel: an interesting and original subject, extremely well-composed, thought-provoking, a fantastic main character and not a sentence too many.
'Of Cattle and Men' tells the story of a slaughterhouse in Brazil where the cows seem to gradually go mad as intensive farming causes environmental degradation. Our protagonist, the perceptive and humane 'stun operator' Edgar Wilson responsible for killing the cows, is the first to realise something is not right...
It is about the things we know but prefer not to think about: our enormous and unsustainable meat consumption, the way we treat animals, the feelings of the animals we eat and about the people that kill them for a living.
This author is a real discovery. Outstanding translation as well.
February 14, 2024
The author immerses the reader in the gruesome, bleak setting of a rural slaughterhouse and the men who work inside it. Some of the men go home at the end of the day "smelling like carrion" and the others live there--never escaping the violent nature of their job. Strange things begin to happen, unexplained behaviors from the animals and the people.
The disruption causes the men to think about their jobs; what they do and who they are because they do it.
Very unsettling and disturbing--nobody walks away with a clear conscience, not even the reader.
The disruption causes the men to think about their jobs; what they do and who they are because they do it.
Very unsettling and disturbing--nobody walks away with a clear conscience, not even the reader.
June 29, 2024
Esta historia ocurre en un matadero de vacas. En un mundo de varones donde la violencia es parte de lo cotidiano. La autora logra que esto sea atractivo hasta para mí que no suelo interesarme por esos temas. Edgar Wilson, su protagonista, es el aturdidor. Golpea la frente de los animales con una maza, iniciando el proceso que culmina en una media res.
Es una novela ágil que invita a reflexionar sobre la industria de la carne, sobre comer animales. Invita pero no impone. Hay puntos de vista y opiniones pero no se vuelven argumentos densos. Incluso la trama sigue siendo entretenida mas allá de estos planteos.
Está habituado al calor, al polvo, a las moscas, a la sangre y a la muerte. De eso se trata un matadero. Se mata. Jamás se le ocurrió ir al otro lado de la ciudad a cuestionar el modo en que cocinan churrascos que él nunca va a comer. No piensa en eso. No le importa quién se vaya a comer la última vaca que ha golpeado; le importa, sí, encomendar el alma de cada rumiante que se cruza en su camino. Cree que esos animales también tienen un alma y que él deberá dar cuenta de cada una de ellas cuando muera.
Es una novela ágil que invita a reflexionar sobre la industria de la carne, sobre comer animales. Invita pero no impone. Hay puntos de vista y opiniones pero no se vuelven argumentos densos. Incluso la trama sigue siendo entretenida mas allá de estos planteos.
May 6, 2025
An ominous read about suicidal cows and murderous (and murdered) men in the desolation of a Brazilian slaughterhouse.
…impure but morally acceptable, that’s how he feels. There is no one to stop him, for men like him, slaughterers, are few and far between. Those who eat are many, and they are never satiated. They are all men of blood, those who kill and those who eat. No one goes unpunished.
Of Cattle and Men makes one contemplate the back alleys of the world that cater to our modern life. In a Brazilian outback, with a river polluted by blood, we follow the lives of slaughters and their cattle, with the occasional sheep. The business is dirty, hard, and has high churn. Churn only limitedly due to new economic opportunity but rather due to the loss of life. And then the ruminants are starting to act strange.
Ana Paula Maia her writing is economical and perfectly summons a feeling of horror and desolation. As a movie I would not be able to stomach this, as do the professor and his students who visit the slaughterhouse, who aim to get a complete picture of how their hamburger is "produced", but as a read this is both unsettling and compelling at the same time.
Shining a light on an ubiquitous but overlooked part of our food chain, this is a singularly powerful reading experience and I am disappointed this novel was not picked up by literary prizes. Another gem by Charco!
Quotes:
Edgar Wilson has never eaten a hamburger, but he knows that the meat is minced, pressed, and flattened into a disk. After it’s fried, it’s placed between two slices of round bread and topped with lettuce, tomatoes, and sauce. The price of a hamburger is equal to ten cattle slaughtered by Edgar, since he’s paid for each animal he fells. He has to kill over a hundred heifers and steers a day and works six days a week, taking only Sundays off.
To die a free man is to die a lucky man.
Somebody’s got to do the dirty work. Other people’s dirty work. Nobody wants to do that sort of thing. That’s why God put guys like you and me on this earth.
Not one glimpse of the unbridled horror behind something so tender and delicious.
But instead civilisation barbarised him, and what little affection he’d known became like the dust on the ground he walked upon.
At the hamburger plant, all that white reflects a peace that doesn’t exist, a blinding glare that obscures death. They’re all killers, each their own kind, performing their role in the slaughter line.
They don’t know what they’re in for, Edgar Wilson thinks. Maybe they won’t watch the whole process. For sure no one leaves a slaughterhouse unscathed.
Beneath the sun, the men are all already hard at work, relentlessly pursued by their own shadows.
‘Is he going to be okay?’ asks Santiago.
‘That’s in God’s hands. But for now, he’s dead.’
One of the butchering employees who had some experience on the job is placed in his role, and the work on the dressing line was shared among the others. Just as cattle resemble one another, the same seems to happen with men. It’s difficult to tell them apart. The march of time is like the march of death: it cannot be stopped.
He returns to the farm, lugging his shotgun, still warm from firing, and is saddened by the thought of scaring off dogs and people in the same manner. Like Edgar Wilson, Bronco Gil still cultivates some deep, hidden sentiment for his fellow man, even though most of the time he feels more of a fellowship with animals.
One abyss calling out to another abyss
‘There’s going to be plenty of work to go around,’ says Edgar Wilson.
‘Yes, son, plenty to go around. Like they say in these parts: as long as there’s a cow in this world, there will be a man keen to kill it.’
‘And another keen to eat it,’ concludes Edgar Wilson.
…impure but morally acceptable, that’s how he feels. There is no one to stop him, for men like him, slaughterers, are few and far between. Those who eat are many, and they are never satiated. They are all men of blood, those who kill and those who eat. No one goes unpunished.
Of Cattle and Men makes one contemplate the back alleys of the world that cater to our modern life. In a Brazilian outback, with a river polluted by blood, we follow the lives of slaughters and their cattle, with the occasional sheep. The business is dirty, hard, and has high churn. Churn only limitedly due to new economic opportunity but rather due to the loss of life. And then the ruminants are starting to act strange.
Ana Paula Maia her writing is economical and perfectly summons a feeling of horror and desolation. As a movie I would not be able to stomach this, as do the professor and his students who visit the slaughterhouse, who aim to get a complete picture of how their hamburger is "produced", but as a read this is both unsettling and compelling at the same time.
Shining a light on an ubiquitous but overlooked part of our food chain, this is a singularly powerful reading experience and I am disappointed this novel was not picked up by literary prizes. Another gem by Charco!
Quotes:
Edgar Wilson has never eaten a hamburger, but he knows that the meat is minced, pressed, and flattened into a disk. After it’s fried, it’s placed between two slices of round bread and topped with lettuce, tomatoes, and sauce. The price of a hamburger is equal to ten cattle slaughtered by Edgar, since he’s paid for each animal he fells. He has to kill over a hundred heifers and steers a day and works six days a week, taking only Sundays off.
To die a free man is to die a lucky man.
Somebody’s got to do the dirty work. Other people’s dirty work. Nobody wants to do that sort of thing. That’s why God put guys like you and me on this earth.
Not one glimpse of the unbridled horror behind something so tender and delicious.
But instead civilisation barbarised him, and what little affection he’d known became like the dust on the ground he walked upon.
At the hamburger plant, all that white reflects a peace that doesn’t exist, a blinding glare that obscures death. They’re all killers, each their own kind, performing their role in the slaughter line.
They don’t know what they’re in for, Edgar Wilson thinks. Maybe they won’t watch the whole process. For sure no one leaves a slaughterhouse unscathed.
Beneath the sun, the men are all already hard at work, relentlessly pursued by their own shadows.
‘Is he going to be okay?’ asks Santiago.
‘That’s in God’s hands. But for now, he’s dead.’
One of the butchering employees who had some experience on the job is placed in his role, and the work on the dressing line was shared among the others. Just as cattle resemble one another, the same seems to happen with men. It’s difficult to tell them apart. The march of time is like the march of death: it cannot be stopped.
He returns to the farm, lugging his shotgun, still warm from firing, and is saddened by the thought of scaring off dogs and people in the same manner. Like Edgar Wilson, Bronco Gil still cultivates some deep, hidden sentiment for his fellow man, even though most of the time he feels more of a fellowship with animals.
One abyss calling out to another abyss
‘There’s going to be plenty of work to go around,’ says Edgar Wilson.
‘Yes, son, plenty to go around. Like they say in these parts: as long as there’s a cow in this world, there will be a man keen to kill it.’
‘And another keen to eat it,’ concludes Edgar Wilson.
April 17, 2023
The opening paragraph was brilliant, from these first few lines I was hooked, I knew I was in for a special journey with an interesting character called Edgar Wilson, I'm not sure why it was like this but I felt instantly settled and all stresses of starting a new book vanished. It is an atmospheric read, very much like No Country for Old Men, you can sense the heat and the lethargy in the characters, there is no rushing around, everything happens at a relaxed pace with plenty of time to sit, chill and enjoy the views. Edgar and his fellow comrade's thoughts are all very simple, and at 100 pages long not a word is wasted, easily the sort of book you can finish and think I fancy having another round of this.
The story takes place in a slaughterhouse and is very much anti-meat but that doesn't take over the book, I was expecting this to be full of lectures to the reader to put them off meat but the author just tells you how the slaughterhouse works and leaves you to ask why you have your head in the sand and continue consuming meat even though deep down you know what these animals go through. The reader spends most of their time with Edgar, a stun operator, you get up close with the animals and look into their eyes with him as they are knocked out. The plot was mysterious and I found myself easily pulled in and caught up trying to figure out what was going on. I also really felt for Edgar, as the stun operator he suffers with what his job requires of him but he knows that if he doesn't do it somebody else will do it and probably with less care for the animals.
The book is translated by Zoë Perry and if the original text felt like a Cormac McCarthy novel then she did a fantastic job in translating. Another fine release by Charco Press, enjoying exploring international literature with them.
Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2023...
The story takes place in a slaughterhouse and is very much anti-meat but that doesn't take over the book, I was expecting this to be full of lectures to the reader to put them off meat but the author just tells you how the slaughterhouse works and leaves you to ask why you have your head in the sand and continue consuming meat even though deep down you know what these animals go through. The reader spends most of their time with Edgar, a stun operator, you get up close with the animals and look into their eyes with him as they are knocked out. The plot was mysterious and I found myself easily pulled in and caught up trying to figure out what was going on. I also really felt for Edgar, as the stun operator he suffers with what his job requires of him but he knows that if he doesn't do it somebody else will do it and probably with less care for the animals.
The book is translated by Zoë Perry and if the original text felt like a Cormac McCarthy novel then she did a fantastic job in translating. Another fine release by Charco Press, enjoying exploring international literature with them.
Blog review: https://felcherman.wordpress.com/2023...
July 2, 2025
This was an entertaining and thought-provoking novella. I really liked the writing style. A lot of people compare this to Tender is the Flesh, and I completely agree with the comparison, but Tender is the Flesh comes out on top for me.
February 13, 2024
The setting.
“The low mooing that reverberates around the farm sounds like the lapping of calm waters. The valley is a place filled with trees, under-growth, small streams, waterfalls, and it blooms a reddish hue due to the roses and pomegranates, but mostly because of the blood. It's impossible to tell from a distance, or even smell it, but the roses that bloom along Rio das Moscas have gotten darker over the years, feeding on the river's bloody waters.”
The cattle.
“But why, Edgar? What does it matter which way they graze?”
"They only graze to the north, and some of them have been facing west for days?”
“And what does that mean?”
"That there's something very wrong going on?”
"What do you think it is?”
“I don't know... I've never seen this happen... they've lost their way.”
The men.
“It's Sunday, so he mumbles a prayer from his child-hood. Edgar Wilson knows that God is in the high places and that He rises every day with the sun. His faith is strong, but he knows his own violence will never allow him to see the face of his Creator. He could redeem himself, but he's never made the effort. His free will leads him in another direction. Edgar Wilson tries to hold onto the image of the sun and its rays emerging at dawn, because he knows that wherever he ends up, he won't see the sun, nor its rays; there will be no dawn, nor the emergence of the Creator. There, it will be like a coal mine, buried in the depths, never seeing the light of day….In a way, he longs for it, to know that in the light of day there is judgment, and that everything lies hidden in the shadows.”
“The low mooing that reverberates around the farm sounds like the lapping of calm waters. The valley is a place filled with trees, under-growth, small streams, waterfalls, and it blooms a reddish hue due to the roses and pomegranates, but mostly because of the blood. It's impossible to tell from a distance, or even smell it, but the roses that bloom along Rio das Moscas have gotten darker over the years, feeding on the river's bloody waters.”
The cattle.
“But why, Edgar? What does it matter which way they graze?”
"They only graze to the north, and some of them have been facing west for days?”
“And what does that mean?”
"That there's something very wrong going on?”
"What do you think it is?”
“I don't know... I've never seen this happen... they've lost their way.”
The men.
“It's Sunday, so he mumbles a prayer from his child-hood. Edgar Wilson knows that God is in the high places and that He rises every day with the sun. His faith is strong, but he knows his own violence will never allow him to see the face of his Creator. He could redeem himself, but he's never made the effort. His free will leads him in another direction. Edgar Wilson tries to hold onto the image of the sun and its rays emerging at dawn, because he knows that wherever he ends up, he won't see the sun, nor its rays; there will be no dawn, nor the emergence of the Creator. There, it will be like a coal mine, buried in the depths, never seeing the light of day….In a way, he longs for it, to know that in the light of day there is judgment, and that everything lies hidden in the shadows.”
June 2, 2024
2 stars
In stark contrast to my expectations, this novella turned out to be fairly boring, with mediocre writing. It's really uninteresting, and the characters all seemed the same. I couldn't figure out this book's purpose. I would rate the writing as above average because it was so rigid and stiff and didn't offer anything new.
I would have given it a 1 star rating, though, if not for the conclusion. Furthermore, the slaughterhouse was accurately represented without being glorified.
In stark contrast to my expectations, this novella turned out to be fairly boring, with mediocre writing. It's really uninteresting, and the characters all seemed the same. I couldn't figure out this book's purpose. I would rate the writing as above average because it was so rigid and stiff and didn't offer anything new.
I would have given it a 1 star rating, though, if not for the conclusion. Furthermore, the slaughterhouse was accurately represented without being glorified.
December 3, 2025
Raudoni ženklai juodoje tamsoje. Kraujas, rožės, granatai, gvajavos, saulėlydžiai. Toks veidrodis, į kurı žiūrėti baisu, bet tikriausiai reikia. Kraujo meridiano vaibas.
October 1, 2024
I’ve seen a couple of people compare it to Tender is the Flesh and having not long finished that book I was intrigued to say the least. For me, the book didn’t quite reach my expectations or the standard of Bazterrica’s story with its twists and turns. The prose were chilling and eerie, and the inclusion of death and brutality pinned against questions of corruption asking why is something so impure accepted linking it to greed was interesting. Although it is only 97pgs I wanted it to go further, I wanted more mystery unfolding with the slaughterhouse and the potential thief making these cows go missing. Furthermore, while death is clear and evident throughout each page I felt its criticism of society justifying violence and the meat industry could have created a bigger long lasting impact.
April 20, 2023
Cormac McCarthy meets John Steinbeck in this tightly written novella that forces us to witness the grinding of both men and animals under capitalist structures. This is a dusty and bloody book that follows a group of slaughterhouse workers in Brazil and the cows that aren't acting as expected (are they getting a taste of free will?). Weird things are happening, but we don't know why or how. It almost seems that the lines between man and animal are breaking down, if they ever existed.
I loved that this book was never preachy, you have to follow along with your own moral compass. How do you look at the systems around you and your role in them? In this case, work that is based on daily, multiple deaths. There's a constant horror feel to the writing, but this is the world we live in.
-------
'We're getting another factory,' says the driver, his
voice flat, looking slightly annoyed. 'It's going to be a big one.'
'There's going to be plenty of work to go around,' says Edgar Wilson.
'Yes, son, plenty to go around. Like they say in these parts: as long as there's a cow in this world, there will be a man keen to kill it.'
'And another keen to eat it,' concludes Edgar Wilson.
The driver smirks and grabs the cigarette from behind his ear. Edgar Wilson strikes a match and lights it. The man thanks him.
'There'll always be a bunch of people willing to eat it. But not to kill it. Only folks like you and me, boy. Only folks like us.'
------
I have to ask myself, why was this not on this year's International Booker list? It did more in 100 pages than some books do in over 500.
I loved that this book was never preachy, you have to follow along with your own moral compass. How do you look at the systems around you and your role in them? In this case, work that is based on daily, multiple deaths. There's a constant horror feel to the writing, but this is the world we live in.
-------
'We're getting another factory,' says the driver, his
voice flat, looking slightly annoyed. 'It's going to be a big one.'
'There's going to be plenty of work to go around,' says Edgar Wilson.
'Yes, son, plenty to go around. Like they say in these parts: as long as there's a cow in this world, there will be a man keen to kill it.'
'And another keen to eat it,' concludes Edgar Wilson.
The driver smirks and grabs the cigarette from behind his ear. Edgar Wilson strikes a match and lights it. The man thanks him.
'There'll always be a bunch of people willing to eat it. But not to kill it. Only folks like you and me, boy. Only folks like us.'
------
I have to ask myself, why was this not on this year's International Booker list? It did more in 100 pages than some books do in over 500.
April 18, 2024
Update: April 17, 2024 Of Cattle and Men won the Republic of Consciousness Prize 2024.
This was an interesting and confronting story that in parts was hyper realistic in a visceral way, and fable-like in other ways.
Set in a place where there is a small slaughter-house and not far away a hamburger processing plant, the author creates a small world that concerns men and their relationship to meat and their lack of or relationship to animals who provide it.
Humanity has been able to consume meat in part because they are separated from the process of how to turn something sentient into something edible.
Here, we meet Edgar Wilson, stun operator, who has ritualised his occupation and believes that it has an effect on the animal. He has a dark history and holds little compassion for men who are carelessly cruel. It brings out his own.
Recently the animals waiting in the holding area have become unsettled and strange, unexplained happenings have been occurring. The men stay up into the night to investigate and try to find the suspected predator that is disturbing the animals and worse.
I thought this novella was quite incredible and it evoked all kinds of memories and thoughts, that may not be like many other readers.
Firstly, the realism of the slaughter house. Although this novel concerns what seems like a small scale operation, the attention to detail in its execution and the evocation of all the senses in that environment immediately reminded me of memories I would rather forget.
When I was a university student, one summer I needed to find a job allied to the agricultural industry, so I wrote to a family friend who was a 'stock agent' asking if he knew of an opportunity. He suggested a "freezing works" (an interesting choice of name used in New Zealand and Australia to describe a slaughterhouse at which animal carcasses are frozen for export) and so I began my summer working in this enterprise's pay office, transferring data from daily timesheets into a ledger that would eventually be input into a computer to generate their pay. Far from the action, except that one of my roles was to go and collect those time sheets from the different departments. And that is where and how, I witnessed with every one of my senses, everything.
Secondly, the question of what an animal intuits and feels. Being raised on a 1,600 acre sheep and cattle farm, we are conditioned to accept certain realities and made to participate in them, until the age of free will. But within that, we occasionally have access to an animal as a pet - so the relationship building that occurs between the human and the animal is undeniable, but equally not every human will allow that relationship to occur. Our pet lambs (after the annual school pet day) were put back into the flock; my pet calf (named after my grandmother), I kind of rescued from one fate (slaughter) to have her destined for another (to become the 'house cow'), providing daily milk to the family; she could keep her offspring for 6 months. The attempt at 'mothering' a newborn onto another, an act that would often result in the false mother killing the strange newborn, despite it being dressed in the skin of her own dead lamb. There is indeed a knowing.
In Of Cattle and Men, Ana Paula Maia shows man's inhumanity to man and his denial that any other species might have awareness, consciousness or feeling. So, they are confused by what is occurring and they look only towards what they know, they suspect other men. They disbelieve what they see.
Because what if those animals had agency?
This was an interesting and confronting story that in parts was hyper realistic in a visceral way, and fable-like in other ways.
Set in a place where there is a small slaughter-house and not far away a hamburger processing plant, the author creates a small world that concerns men and their relationship to meat and their lack of or relationship to animals who provide it.
Two enclosures, one for cattle and one for men, standing side by side. Sometimes the smell is familiar. Only the voices on one side and the mooing on the other distinguish the men from the ruminants.
Humanity has been able to consume meat in part because they are separated from the process of how to turn something sentient into something edible.
Here, we meet Edgar Wilson, stun operator, who has ritualised his occupation and believes that it has an effect on the animal. He has a dark history and holds little compassion for men who are carelessly cruel. It brings out his own.
Milo decides to keep quiet. He knows Edgar Wilson's loyalty, his methods, and he knows that Zeca really was useless. No one had reported him missing, and if anybody came looking for the boy,he would simply say he never showed up for work again. That he doesn't know where he's gone off to. Just as no one questions death in the slaughterhouse, the death of Zeca, whose rational faculties were on par with the ruminants, would surely be ignored. Senhor Milo knows cattlemen, he's cut from the same cloth. No one goes unpunished. They're men of cattle and blood.
Recently the animals waiting in the holding area have become unsettled and strange, unexplained happenings have been occurring. The men stay up into the night to investigate and try to find the suspected predator that is disturbing the animals and worse.
I thought this novella was quite incredible and it evoked all kinds of memories and thoughts, that may not be like many other readers.
Firstly, the realism of the slaughter house. Although this novel concerns what seems like a small scale operation, the attention to detail in its execution and the evocation of all the senses in that environment immediately reminded me of memories I would rather forget.
When I was a university student, one summer I needed to find a job allied to the agricultural industry, so I wrote to a family friend who was a 'stock agent' asking if he knew of an opportunity. He suggested a "freezing works" (an interesting choice of name used in New Zealand and Australia to describe a slaughterhouse at which animal carcasses are frozen for export) and so I began my summer working in this enterprise's pay office, transferring data from daily timesheets into a ledger that would eventually be input into a computer to generate their pay. Far from the action, except that one of my roles was to go and collect those time sheets from the different departments. And that is where and how, I witnessed with every one of my senses, everything.
Secondly, the question of what an animal intuits and feels. Being raised on a 1,600 acre sheep and cattle farm, we are conditioned to accept certain realities and made to participate in them, until the age of free will. But within that, we occasionally have access to an animal as a pet - so the relationship building that occurs between the human and the animal is undeniable, but equally not every human will allow that relationship to occur. Our pet lambs (after the annual school pet day) were put back into the flock; my pet calf (named after my grandmother), I kind of rescued from one fate (slaughter) to have her destined for another (to become the 'house cow'), providing daily milk to the family; she could keep her offspring for 6 months. The attempt at 'mothering' a newborn onto another, an act that would often result in the false mother killing the strange newborn, despite it being dressed in the skin of her own dead lamb. There is indeed a knowing.
In Of Cattle and Men, Ana Paula Maia shows man's inhumanity to man and his denial that any other species might have awareness, consciousness or feeling. So, they are confused by what is occurring and they look only towards what they know, they suspect other men. They disbelieve what they see.
Because what if those animals had agency?
December 13, 2023
Just inside a hundred pages, this work, but so much to admire and think about.
We are in a slaughterhouse, with all its allegorical gore. There are the details here. But (note the title), there are also the MEN who do the killing.
Edgar Wilson is one of the men, a stun operator. One senses a reluctance about him. He's there just because he's no longer in the mines. He has brought his intuition with him, and his own sense of ethics. There is a practical side to Edgar's methods: a calm cow leads to tastier meat. But he also looks for meaning in their eyes:
Edgar picks up the mallet. The steer comes up close to him. Edgar looks into the animal's eyes and caresses its forehead. The cow stomps one hoof, wags its tail, and snorts. Edgar shushes the animal and its movements slow. There is something about this shushing that makes the cattle drowsy, it establishes a mutual trust. An intimate connection. With his thumb smeared in lime, Edgar Wilson makes the sign of the cross between the ruminant's eyes and takes two steps back. This is his ritual as a stun operator. He poises the mallet and strikes the steer's forehead with pinpoint accuracy, resulting in loss of consciousness caused by cerebral haemorrhage. . . .
However hard he tries, his imagination casts no light: neither on the darkness of those unfathomable eyes, nor on the darkness that cloaks his own wickedness.
Edgar Wilson will do worse, but we accept that he must. It's a wicked world. No one goes unpunished.
We are in a slaughterhouse, with all its allegorical gore. There are the details here. But (note the title), there are also the MEN who do the killing.
Edgar Wilson is one of the men, a stun operator. One senses a reluctance about him. He's there just because he's no longer in the mines. He has brought his intuition with him, and his own sense of ethics. There is a practical side to Edgar's methods: a calm cow leads to tastier meat. But he also looks for meaning in their eyes:
Edgar picks up the mallet. The steer comes up close to him. Edgar looks into the animal's eyes and caresses its forehead. The cow stomps one hoof, wags its tail, and snorts. Edgar shushes the animal and its movements slow. There is something about this shushing that makes the cattle drowsy, it establishes a mutual trust. An intimate connection. With his thumb smeared in lime, Edgar Wilson makes the sign of the cross between the ruminant's eyes and takes two steps back. This is his ritual as a stun operator. He poises the mallet and strikes the steer's forehead with pinpoint accuracy, resulting in loss of consciousness caused by cerebral haemorrhage. . . .
However hard he tries, his imagination casts no light: neither on the darkness of those unfathomable eyes, nor on the darkness that cloaks his own wickedness.
Edgar Wilson will do worse, but we accept that he must. It's a wicked world. No one goes unpunished.
June 20, 2024
Lo más impactante de este impactante libro es el tipo de narración que crea esa atmósfera en donde todo puede pasar, en donde el tiempo se ralentiza a la vez que el golpe te devuelve a la realidad. Es maravillosa y brutal esa sensación, tan poco usual, de andar entre hombres y vacas y sangre, mucha sangre.
No me compro (si es que por ahí es la intención de la autora) la culpa por comer carne.
Me gustan estos libros de pueblo, de rastro, de oficios necesarios pero no valorados, de hombres simples con valores morales.
El tiempo de la novela transcurre de una forma que no sabría explicar y amé.
No me compro (si es que por ahí es la intención de la autora) la culpa por comer carne.
Me gustan estos libros de pueblo, de rastro, de oficios necesarios pero no valorados, de hombres simples con valores morales.
El tiempo de la novela transcurre de una forma que no sabría explicar y amé.
July 12, 2025
לסקירה מפורטת בעברית, קישור לבלוג שלי -
https://sivi-the-avid-reader.com/על-פ...
https://sivi-the-avid-reader.com/על-פ...
March 29, 2023
Oh how I love when a book can challenge its readers, confronting them with the vile underbelly of a system that in this case, they most likely support, all without being heavy handed or pontificating.
In a dry, depraved, McCarthy-esque landscape, we follow the routines of Edgar Wilson, the man responsible for stunning cattle with the crack of a mallet before they go on to be slaughtered.
Things go awry when the cattle seem to be acquiring a sense of free will, miscarrying and jumping to their death rather than waiting to be slaughtered at the hands of men.
Maia subtly draws connections between the two beasts, man and animal. After all, the river runs red with the blood of both.
Maia’s writing is graphic and raw, but there’s no dramatization, no exaggerations are necessary to make her point. She doesn’t even go so far as to make an explicit point.
She depicts reality and leaves it up to you, the reader, to decide whether you’ll accept it as simply a bleak, yet engrossing novel or whether you’d like to ponder your role in the savagery. She offers no judgement either way, just a gentle reminder that with such cruelty, no one goes unpunished.
A favorite of the year thus far.
In a dry, depraved, McCarthy-esque landscape, we follow the routines of Edgar Wilson, the man responsible for stunning cattle with the crack of a mallet before they go on to be slaughtered.
Things go awry when the cattle seem to be acquiring a sense of free will, miscarrying and jumping to their death rather than waiting to be slaughtered at the hands of men.
Maia subtly draws connections between the two beasts, man and animal. After all, the river runs red with the blood of both.
Maia’s writing is graphic and raw, but there’s no dramatization, no exaggerations are necessary to make her point. She doesn’t even go so far as to make an explicit point.
She depicts reality and leaves it up to you, the reader, to decide whether you’ll accept it as simply a bleak, yet engrossing novel or whether you’d like to ponder your role in the savagery. She offers no judgement either way, just a gentle reminder that with such cruelty, no one goes unpunished.
A favorite of the year thus far.
November 22, 2023
It might be too soon to write a review about this dark novella because it is deep. My thoughts after just finishing it are that there is a price to be paid for all the blood shed so that we can go to the grocery store and buy that nicely marbled steak wrapped in cellophane with only the slightest trace of blood in the package and who should pay that price?
It is not a PETA novel, with all due respect to PETA, I don’t feel Ana Paula Maia was trying to stop people eating meat, I do think she was asking us to be present in the process, acknowledge that a sentient being was killed and another sentient being had to do the killing and that being the killer takes a toll and every individual involved in the process bears that burden so that others can eat.
I think she wanted us to consider what it is to take a life of an animal or a man, either intentionally for food or intentionally because a person is cruel. Is the accidental death of one man more tragic than than the intentional deaths of hundreds of animals a day? Do animals choose death and if they can is that sadder than them being killed for food? Can the natural world exact a price for death and destruction?
I highly recommend this and know that I will be contemplating its possible meaning for awhile.
It is not a PETA novel, with all due respect to PETA, I don’t feel Ana Paula Maia was trying to stop people eating meat, I do think she was asking us to be present in the process, acknowledge that a sentient being was killed and another sentient being had to do the killing and that being the killer takes a toll and every individual involved in the process bears that burden so that others can eat.
I think she wanted us to consider what it is to take a life of an animal or a man, either intentionally for food or intentionally because a person is cruel. Is the accidental death of one man more tragic than than the intentional deaths of hundreds of animals a day? Do animals choose death and if they can is that sadder than them being killed for food? Can the natural world exact a price for death and destruction?
I highly recommend this and know that I will be contemplating its possible meaning for awhile.
December 23, 2025
ėmė mažiau patikti, kai ties viduriu tekstas perlūžo į mistikos pusę, bet radau netikėto grožio – rožių raudonis iš karvių kraujo, švelnumas smurte, tai jau savaime buvo taip paslaptinga ir stipru, kad nereikėjo papildomo moralizavimo su mįslingom žūtim
January 8, 2021
Qué libro más bellamente escrito por la chucha para narrar la crueldad y la violencia de la industria de la carne. Un narrador impecable, unas descripciones precisas, un libro sensorial donde olemos, tocamos, sentimos todo.
Edgar Wilson es un personaje taaan interesante que quiero más de él.
Creo que Ana Paula Maia merece ser más leída, por favor.
Edgar Wilson es un personaje taaan interesante que quiero más de él.
Creo que Ana Paula Maia merece ser más leída, por favor.
August 7, 2025
4.5/5
“Round and seasoned like that, they don’t even look like they had ever been a cow. Not one glimpse of the unbridled horror behind something so tender and delicious.”
This is what I was looking for when I read Matthew Stokoe’s “Cows” but found splatterpunk beasteality instead. Needless to say, Of Cattle and Men is a MUCH more satisfying read, especially for this vegetarian of 32 years. Words are powerful and often transformative. I stopped eating meat cold turkey after reading Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle in seventh grade.
Every now and then I like reading books about the meat industry to reinforce my feelings of superiority over all the human carnivores out there. Seriously though, what’s taking you all so long? Evolve already!
“Round and seasoned like that, they don’t even look like they had ever been a cow. Not one glimpse of the unbridled horror behind something so tender and delicious.”
This is what I was looking for when I read Matthew Stokoe’s “Cows” but found splatterpunk beasteality instead. Needless to say, Of Cattle and Men is a MUCH more satisfying read, especially for this vegetarian of 32 years. Words are powerful and often transformative. I stopped eating meat cold turkey after reading Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle in seventh grade.
Every now and then I like reading books about the meat industry to reinforce my feelings of superiority over all the human carnivores out there. Seriously though, what’s taking you all so long? Evolve already!
April 16, 2024
Brutal.
January 2, 2024
'As long as there's a cow in this world, there will be a man keen to kill it.
And another keen to eat it'.
Finished this in one sitting on the first day of 2024 and I'm certain it'll be up there as one of my best reads of the year already.
This is a fascinatingly bleak and dark read about a slaughterhouse in Brazil.
It follows stun operator Edgar as he serves up death on an industrial scale, alongside other cruel and morally bankrupt men. Ironically, it is in fact Edgar who is arguably the only man in the abattoir who holds any degree of sympathy towards the helpless animals, despite himself also going on to kill a human too. A vile human, but a human nonetheless.
A Cormac McCarthy-esque landscape, coupled with the terse narrative style akin to Hemingway, Of Cattle and Men purposely poses more questions than it answers.
It is very unnerving as it reveals the process of wholesale murder that we are all aware happens across the world (and will continue to happen arguably for many centuries to come), yet also performs one of literature's many important roles: to serve as a mirror. Just how complicit are we all in evil around the world? How thin (if at all) is the boundary between what constitutes human and animal?
And another keen to eat it'.
Finished this in one sitting on the first day of 2024 and I'm certain it'll be up there as one of my best reads of the year already.
This is a fascinatingly bleak and dark read about a slaughterhouse in Brazil.
It follows stun operator Edgar as he serves up death on an industrial scale, alongside other cruel and morally bankrupt men. Ironically, it is in fact Edgar who is arguably the only man in the abattoir who holds any degree of sympathy towards the helpless animals, despite himself also going on to kill a human too. A vile human, but a human nonetheless.
A Cormac McCarthy-esque landscape, coupled with the terse narrative style akin to Hemingway, Of Cattle and Men purposely poses more questions than it answers.
It is very unnerving as it reveals the process of wholesale murder that we are all aware happens across the world (and will continue to happen arguably for many centuries to come), yet also performs one of literature's many important roles: to serve as a mirror. Just how complicit are we all in evil around the world? How thin (if at all) is the boundary between what constitutes human and animal?
Displaying 1 - 30 of 496 reviews