Savage Theories

A star of Latin American literature’s controversial and dazzling debut novel published in the UK for the first time

A novel of seduction and madness, animated by the spirits of Wittgenstein, Rousseau, Nabokov and Bolao.Buenos Aires. The mysterious narrator, who is a student at the School of Philosophy stalks a middle-aged professor, desperate to reveal that she alone understands his theories. Unable to earn his affection, she strategically seduces a former leftist guerilla and toys with him, blurring the lines between prey and predator. Parallel to this narrative, we follow little Kamtchowsky as she grows from sexually liberated adolescent to transgressive documentary filmmaker. Through her and her boyfriend Pabst’s intellectual and sexual misadventures, we witness the underground scene of Buenos Aires as they dabble in ketamine, group sex, video games and pornography. As an aside, in 1917 Africa, a Dutch anthropologist named Johan van Vliet theorises the development of beast into man, and humanity’s longstanding flirtation with beastly acts. Climaxing with an Internet hack that catalogues historical violence, devastation and atrocity throughout the centuries, Savage Theories is a kaleidoscopic collage that is spellbinding, strange and ground-breaking.