About the Book: Cow
Cow is the story of a Spanish agricultural labourer, Ambrosio, who goes to
Switzerland as a Gastarbeiter. He is bound for Innenwald, a village in the Swiss
highlands, and the novel begins as he is about to spend a summer working for
Farmer Knuchel. It ends in the abattoir of the neighbouring city, at the end of
the seven hard years of labour that have destroyed him. There he sees Blosch,
the once magnificent lead cow on Knuchels farm, now a sad, condemned creature in
the abattoir.
Cow was acclaimed as a contemporary classic on first publication. Now more than
ever