Saga of Brutes

In three stark novellas, Ana Paula Maia describes the shocking reality of the lives of the invisible workingmen who are forced to carry society’s burdens.

From the International Booker Prize Shortlisted Author of On Earth As It Is Beneath

Saga of Brutes draws together three confronting and darkly comic stories: “Between Dog Fights and Hog Slaughter,” “The Dirty Work of Others,” and “carbo animalis,” published in one volume for the first time. Her protagonists are heroes of vile circumstance—coal miners, firemen, garbage collectors, crematorium workers—soot-covered supermen who risk their lives performing difficult and dangerous work for others. But in the end, they, too, amount to nothing but carbo animalis—notwithstanding the impure relation of coal to diamonds. Despite their straightforwardness, Ana Paula Maia’s stories are filled with great insight and compassion for the lives of the men who live on the edge of a society built with their own sweat.