Esther, the Butcher

Winner of Finland's Best Debut Prize and shortlisted for the prestigious Runeberg Award, Esther, the Butcher is a fiercely original debut about meat, reproduction, the female body and a small factory town

Tall Esther. Big Esther. Esther, the butcher.

From childhood, Esther rehearses life outside her parents' butcher shop-pushing a baby doll under her dress, waddling until it tumbles onto the asphalt before bewildered customers.

Years later, Esther becomes a butcher herself, gifted with an uncanny ability to understand the language of meat. Yet her craft cannot satisfy the fierce longing that consumes her: the desire to reproduce. When a man known to the community as the Artificial Inseminator enters her life, hope flickers - but no child comes. Under the gaze of a small-town community, Esther moves through life as if on a surreal theatre stage, her lonely room pulsing with the joys and sorrows of the world.

A deadpan comedy teetering on the edge of the absurd and the grotesque, Esther, the Butcher introduces us to the extraordinary talent and imagination of Mariia Niskavaara.

Translated from the Finnish by Kate Sotejeff-Wilson

Contributor: Kate Sotejeff-Wilson (Translated by)

Translator: Kate Sotejeff-Wilson

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