Non-fiction literature, animals and pandemic. The case of the book "The life of a cow"

Abstract

In the context of the current Covid-19 pandemic, the media is often bombarded with figures of people affected by the virus, and these figures are accompanied by with the identity and intimate stories of some of the sick or deceased. However, when analysing non-human animals around the pandemic, only a general approach is taken (sometimes, without even distinguishing species). Although non-fiction literature is characterized by putting an identity and a face to some general phenomena, it practically never gives an identity to animals. The book "The life of a cow" (first edition in 2008 / last edition in 2020) is one of the few exceptions in which this does occur. The reader faces an author who buys a cow in Argentina, names it, talks about her life in the media across different countries, and follows it for several years. The idea is to use this example to talk about the new narrative forms of non-fiction and the media coverage of animals during the pandemic.