Among Animals

The ways of money are inscrutable. Yet it shapes our lives, hence Elfriede Jelinek doggedly follows its trail. From the Bible to the notorious Austrian entrepreneur René Benko, from blatant greed to cleverly disguised corruption, from class struggle to bloody and expensive wars – this is the eternal story, which Jelinek this time tells entirely from the perspective of animals. With ever-increasing bewilderment, yet with growing sarcasm, cows, pigs, pigeons and even the Lamb of God observe us humans as we consistently work towards our own misfortune – and in the end, unchecked and cheerfully, hurtle towards the apocalypse of capitalism. For one thing is clear in Among Animals: the world is in tatters, and the financial markets are unlikely to set it right.

«A brilliant stream of consciousness that you can jump into at any point and be instantly swept away by Jelinek’s sarcasm, her humour, her anger … The core of the text: mankind's self-abolition by its own hand.» (Die Zeit)
«There hasn’t been such a gathering of animals since Noah’s Ark and since Orwell’s Animal Farm … Section by section, animal by animal, theme by theme, a delightfully playful yet deeply caustic text unfolds.» (NZZ am Sonntag)
«A furious linguistic dismantling of the financial system … Among Animals is a play that depicts the terrifying ubiquity of economical transactions in our society.» (Deutschlandfunk)