A review by sharkybookshelf
The National Telepathy by Roque Larraquy

2.0

September 1933, the Peruvian Rubber Company delivers nineteen indigenous people to Buenos Aires, accompanied by a box containing a sloth which, it transpires, can create erotic telepathic connections between people…

This one was…an experience.

It’s a satirical commentary about many things, including colonialism, the treatment and fetishisation of indigenous peoples, “civilisation”, power structures and how these all intertwine with each other. There’s also a brief bit about Argentina’s dictatorship in the late 1950s, though this felt rather under-developed relative to the rest of the book.

Now, perhaps I picked this up when I was simply too tired for it, but for the entirety of the book, I found myself thinking “wtf am I reading?!” Ultimately I think it was just too clever and experimental and out there for me and I felt I rather missed the point of the whole frankly bizarre erotic sloth idea.

A bonkers, experimental satire of colonialism, civilisation and power in South America that rather went over my head.