Dr. David Hartley follows the success of ‘Pigskin’ with short story collection ‘Fauna’
During his time volunteering with the RSCPA and transition to a vegan lifestyle, Manchester-based researcher and writer Dr. David Hartley found himself questioning the way in which humans dictate the lives of animals, often reducing them to hunks of meat or performative metaphors to explore human emotions without considering the ways in which we impact the animal world.
Of the underlying themes of this short story collection, Dr. David Hartley says, “I get frustrated with the way we think about animals. We love them, but we eat them, we praise them, but we hunt them. I wanted to tell new tales of our oldest friends to make us rethink our relationship with our fellow-feeling beasts. We can do so much better…(These stories) were my way of interrogating the mind-twisting ways we justify the slaughter, entrapment and control of animals, from exotic beasts to domesticated family members.”
Lucie McKnight Hardy, author of ‘Water Shall Refuse Them’, says of ‘Fauna’, “Fiercely original, these are stories that are at times disturbing, absurd, and darkly comedic, and which refuse to conform to the constraints of time and space. A startling collection, that begs to be read aloud. Hartley is a brilliant storyteller, with the kind of imagination that leaves you feeling a bit fearful for your own safety.”
'Fauna' was released on September 10th 2021 and is available to buy online now.
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