Elbow Room: The Varieties Of Free Will Worth Wanting

Winner of the 2023 Cercador PrizeShortlisted for the 2024 Republic of Consciousness PrizeAnimals go mad & men die (accidentally & not) at a slaughterhouse in an impoverished, isolated corner of Brazil.°°°In a landscape worthy of Cormac McCarthy, the river runs septic with blood. Edgar Wilson makes the sign of the cross on the forehead of a cow, then stuns it with a mallet. He does this over & over again, as the stun operator at Senhor Milo’s slaughterhouse: reliable, responsible, quietly dispatching cows & following orders, wherever that may take him. It’s important to calm the cows, especially now that they seem so unsettled: they have begun to run in panic into walls & over cliffs. Bronco Gil, the foreman, thinks it’s a jaguar or a wild boar. Edgar Wilson has other suspicions. But what is certain is that there is something in this desolate corner of Brazil driving men, & animals, to murder & madness.°°° Ana Paula Maia (Brazil, 1977) is an author & scriptwriter & has published several novels, including O habitante das falhas subterráneas (2003), De gados e homens (2013), & the trilogy A saga dos brudos, comprising Entre rinhas de cachorros e porcos abatidos (2009), O trabalho sujo dos outros (2009) & Carvão animal (2011). Her novel A guerra dos bastardos (2007) won praise in Germany as among the best foreign detective fiction. As a scriptwriter she has worked on a wide range of projects for television, cinema & theatre. The author won the São Paulo de Literatura Prize for Best Novel of the Year two years in a row: in 2018 for her novel Assim na Terra como embaixo da Terra, & in 2019 for Enterre Seus Mortos.Zoë Perry has translated work by award-winning Brazilian & Portuguese authors, including: Emilio Fraia, Veronica Stigger, Carol Bensimon, Ana Paula Maia, & Juliana Leite. Her tastes lean toward the offbeat & unusual, & is drawn to work that tests & stretches the boundaries of g Animals go mad and men die (accidentally and not) at a slaughterhouse in an impoverished, isolated corner of Brazil. In a landscape worthy of Cormac McCarthy, the river runs septic and sludgy with blood. Edgar Wilson makes the sign of the cross on the forehead of a cow, then stuns it with a mallet. He does this over and over and over again, the stun operator at Mr. Milos slaughterhouse: reliable, responsible, quietly dispatching cows and following orders, wherever that may take him. Its important to calm the cows, especially now that they seem so unsettled. One runs headlong into the side of a barn, 22 more hurl themselves off the side of a cliff. Bronco Gil, their foreman, thinks its a jaguar or a wild boar, Edgar Wilson does not. But what is certain is that there is something in this desolate corner of Brazil driving men, and animals, to murder and madness. Animals go mad and men die (accidentally and not) at a slaughterhouse in an impoverished, isolated corner of Brazil. In a landscape worthy of Cormac McCarthy, the river runs septic with blood. Edgar Wilson makes the sign of the cross on the forehead of a cow, then stuns it with a mallet. He does this over and over again, as the stun operator at Senhor Milo's slaughterhouse: reliable, responsible, quietly dispatching cows and following orders, wherever that may take him. It's important to calm the cows, especially now that they seem so unsettled: they have begun to run in panic into walls and over cliffs. Bronco Gil, the foreman, thinks it's a jaguar or a wild boar. Edgar Wilson has other suspicions. But what is certain is that there is something in this desolate corner of Brazil driving men, and animals, to murder and madness.