City of Rats

Synopsis

Life isn't easy for a Parisian rat. Gouri gets by selling worms to pigeons with his best friend Rakä, enjoying a comfortable nest beneath the city and dreaming of romance. But after an evening goes spectacularly wrong, the pair find themselves swept into a wildly escalating adventure involving the eccentric Queen of Rats, a human child, escaped prisoners, murder, devils, and the strange underworld lurking beneath the streets of Paris.

Written as a series of letters from a rat to his former owner, City of Rats is a delirious, boundary-shattering work of literary fiction from the legendary French-Argentine writer Copi. Equal parts fable, farce, satire, and fever dream, the novel gleefully dismantles social conventions while embracing the absurd with fearless imagination. Outrageous, darkly funny, and unlike anything else in contemporary literature, City of Rats is a cult classic finally available in English.

About the Author

Copi was the pen name of Raúl Damonte Botana (1939–1987), an Argentine-born writer, cartoonist, playwright, and performer who spent much of his life in exile in Paris. A singular voice in twentieth-century literature, his work blends surrealism, satire, queer culture, and political irreverence into fiction that remains startlingly original. This edition is translated from the French by Kit Schluter and includes an introduction by César Aira.

Publisher

New Directions

Publication Date

March 31, 2026

Format

Paperback

Pages

144

Subjects

Literary Fiction · Fiction in Translation · Absurdist Fiction · Satire · Queer Literature · French Literature

ISBN

9780811238373