»The irruption of Sterchi's Cow on our tame and anemic literary scene recalls nothing so much as the appearance of The Tin Drum«

»Cow is extraordinary [. . .] it conveys a owerful tragi-comic sense of the reek and frenzy of the yard-workers world. The book is a kind of ›de profundis‹ of the cattle-sheds, a milker's epic.«

»An important [. . .] stir-causing novel with a gentle, lyrical flavour.«

»The dignity of humans and animals is the focus of this debut by the Swiss writer, which was published ahead of its time in 1983.«

»Beat Sterchi is a kind of prose Ted Hughes: the archaic and archetypal joys of the udder were never more joyfully or lengthily celebrated [. . .] Beat Sterchi's astonishing fiction never relents [. . .] Cow is a memorable and great fiction: hurt, and hurting, with the power for (one hopes) positive hurt.«

»Cow is firm-fleshed, straight-backed, warm, impressive, like the large Swiss cattle it describes [. . .] an original, powerful, important novel, with a great ancient theme that is so modern and immediate as well.«

»A savage, demonic work, but also a gentle, magically lyrical one.«

»A masterpiece of German language literature.«