Action for Animals Austin

2009 Festival Authors

Jonathan Safran Foer

Foer, lauded author of Everything Is Illuminated and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, takes a turn at nonfiction in Eating Animals, a book inspired by an urgent need to explain to his young children how people can love animals yet still consume them at dinner time. A vegetarian and periodic vegan, Foer quickly fell into a quest for answers after his children were born that led him to break into a chicken farm, view the horrors of factory farming first-hand, research the ethics of humane slaughter and its social, economic, and environmental effects compared to that of factory farming, and examine his relationship with his flatulent family dog. The result is a book filled with compelling, well-researched information that brings to light both the heroes and the horrors of the meat industry; omnivores, vegetarians, and vegans will find Eating Animals thought-provoking and heartfelt in its pursuit of understanding the disjunction between loving the animals we own and eating those served at dinner. Foer's unique style of writing has garnered acclaim from a host of famous authors, including John Updike, who when reviewing Everything Is Illuminated, asserted that "The prose kept jolting the reader into a higher awareness that comes with writing whose exact like hasn’t been seen before." Foer is a graduate professor of Creative Writing at New York University. Foer was also named one of Rolling Stone's "People of the Year" and Esquire's "Best and Brightest."