An ongoing series · Power & society

Any Resemblance to Humans Is Intentional

Literary Satires on Human Nature, with Animals as Unwitting Evidence/“Animals mostly just live. We are the ones who turn them into explanations.”

Humans have always found animals remarkably useful. The fox became cunning, the owl wise, the donkey stubborn, the rat contemptible and the sparrow insignificant. None of them appears to have been consulted. They simply carried on hunting, watching, surviving, eating crumbs and doing whatever animals had been doing long before human beings began turning them into metaphors. We supplied the morality, the politics, the psychology and, whenever necessary, the insult. Any Resemblance to Humans Is Intentional is a series of literary satires in which animals remain largely themselves while human beings gradually become the more interesting species under observation. The animals have no explanation to offer. Fortunately, we have always been very good at providing one for them.

Writers Alex Buday