Summary of Cow
Ambrosio is a Spanish guest worker (Gastarbeiter) on a Swiss farm, where he tends to the cows of farmer Knuchel. Later in the novel, he works in a nearby slaughterhouse, where he encounters Blösch – once a prized dairy cow at the Knuchel farm, now a sad animal facing an undignified end.
Reasons to read Cow
“Cow”, though written in the early 1980s, remains a highly relevant book today, addressing themes such as our treatment of animals, the industrialisation of meat production, and attitudes towards immigrant workers. Beat Sterchi is a Swiss writer who mainly writes in German. A tragic, sincere, and at times brutal book, “Cow” is widely regarded as his masterpiece.
Setting: Emmental (Switzerland)
The novel “Cow” is set in Innerwald, a fictional Swiss village, likely in the Emmental region (renowned for its dairy farms; Sterchi grew up in nearby Bern)
Original title: Blösch
Year of publication: 1983
Nr of pages: 416
