Living Things - Munir Hachemi

WINNER OF A 2023 PEN TRANSLATES AWARD Living Things is a literary eco-thriller, a punk-like blend of Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives and Samanta Schweblin's Fever Dream, and heralds an exciting new voice in international fiction. Living Things follows four recent graduates - Munir, G, Ernesto, and Álex - who travel from Madrid to the south of France to work the grape harvest. Except things don't go as planned: they end up working on an industrial chicken farm and living in a campground, where a general sense of menace takes hold. What follows is a compelling and incisive examination of precarious employment, capitalism, immigration, and the mass production of living things, all interwoven with the protagonist's thoughts on literature and the nature of storytelling. WINNER OF A 2023 PEN TRANSLATES AWARD This punk-like blend of Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives and Samanta Schweblin's Fever Dream heralds an exciting new voice in international fiction Living Things follows four recent graduates - Munir, G, Ernesto, and Álex - who travel from Madrid to the south of France to work the grape harvest. Except things don't go as planned: they end up working on an industrial chicken farm and living in a campground, where a general sense of menace takes hold. What follows is a compelling and incisive examination of precarious employment, capitalism, immigration, and the mass production of living things, all interwoven with the protagonist's thoughts on literature and the nature of storytelling. WINNER OF A 2023 PEN TRANSLATES AWARD This punk-like blend of Roberto Bolaño's The Savage Detectives and Samanta Schweblin's Fever Dream heralds an exciting new voice in international fiction Living Things follows four recent graduates - Munir, G, Ernesto, and Álex - who travel from Madrid to the south of France to work the grape harvest. Except things don't go as planned: they end up working on an industrial chicken farm and living in a campground, where a general sense of menace takes hold. What follows is a compelling and incisive examination of precarious employment, capitalism, immigration, and the mass production of living things, all interwoven with the protagonist's thoughts on literature and the nature of storytelling. Startling, compulsive, and vibrant; Living Things reads like an ignition. The most honest thing I've read in a long time about being young and alive in a beautiful, horrible world. - Dizz Tate, author of Br