A series dedicated to literature in translation whether classic or contemporary.

Originally published as Cosas vivas

Translated from the Spanish by Julia Sanches

Publisher: Coach House Books

After setting up their camper in France, four Spanish grad students (Munir, G, Ernesto, and Álex) go about finding work. Living Things, by Munir Hachemi and translated by Julia Sanches, finds the four protagonists toiling via a temp agency in various aspects of industrial farming. Munir, the narrator, wants to find work, not simply as a means of escape from academia, but also to extract from these work assignments the nebulous concept of “experience.” In his naive quest to achieve future literary greatness, he wants to use these work experiences as a means to craft “literature.” Suffice to say, things don’t go as planned.

In the opening pages, Munir introduces his friends in terms of establishing their class and ideological bona fides. “Keep in mind that Ernesto was a pretty serious guy, Alejandro wished he was, and G – probably the smartest of us four – lived and breathed militant Marxism the way some people do literature, that is, like a rare sin of youth, a categorical decision he didn’t remember making.” The four stock up on food and drink from a small-town convenience store and then set up their camper as a temporary shelter during this fateful summer. Munir, a passionate bibliophile and author aspirant, eventually finds himself working at a massive chicken farm, herding chickens in cages and later, at a different site, administering vaccines. The work is dangerous and arduous. At the end of the working day, the quartet disgust fellow campers with their horrendous smell. As is the wont of youth, they communicate in pop culture references. During work at an experimental grain farm, Munir and his companions start comparing the elusive CEO to Hank Scorpio, the Simpsons character and James Bond super-villain parody. His actions are anything but comical, leading the students attempting to find a means of escape from their plight.

The novel invites comparison to several genres. The precarious nature of their employment and the actual working conditions bring to mind industrial dystopias. The experimental farm exudes the antiseptic ambiance of science fiction, especially the sub-genre focusing on anonymous mega-corporations. It can also be read as a late-capitalism-era retelling of Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle. The horrific circumstances of his working conditions and the horrendous treatment of the chickens leads Munir to re-think his dietary choices. The reconsideration of the consequences of eating meat from industrial farms isn’t some abstract, self-righteous pronouncement either. It is a reactionary revulsion from what he witnesses, a product of the precious “experience” he so cherishes for future literary projects. Although his time with the experimental farm, working with grains and bugs, isn’t any better. Living Things is a socioeconomic critique of industrial agriculture, but can also be read as Cronenberg-style body horror. As a means of necessity, we are living things that eat other living things. It makes for tortured ethical decisions we will forever have to wrestle and understand. But we have to eat, we have to ear a paycheck, despite the bio-ethical implications and consequences. Living Things wrestles with these questions, albeit in a way shot through with humor and personal conviction. While comparing Munir Hachemi to Roberto Bolaño seem inevitable (Living Things has echoes of The Savage Detectives), it also seems like over-selling Hachemi. That said, Hachemi is a new and original voice in Spanish literature, a voice to be cultivated. After this stunning debut novel, we await the magnum opus and/or the diamond-perfect miniature.