Taken from his highly successful
collection, these two stories take unconventional positions towards short story
archetypes. The Tourist Butcher is an
unflinching tale about a serial killer who prepares his victims for a culinary
dish, while Memories in Aluminium Foil follows
the nightmares and existential crisis of a psychology student who receives a
slice of human brain in aluminium foil as a gift from his biologist roommate.
In the original Dutch
collection, Ouariachi stated that his goal was to ‘bring the short story back
to the campfire’, allowing his stories to hold up a mirror to the reader,
rather than telling them what to achieve. These two stories, appearing in
English for the first time, demonstrate his success: he has created a pair of
dark, horrifying underworlds for the reader’s mind to get lost in, whilst
maintaining a language that is light and graceful.