BANG!

In his number-one Kindle Single "CRASH! How I Lost a Hundred Billion and Found True Love", Irish satirist Julian Gough deftly laid bare the Eurozone crisis in all its humor and absurdity. Now in "BANG!" Gough has turned his inimitable wit and wisdom to third-world economies, managing to explain derivatives, arbitrage, and futures through airplanes crashing into livestock.

Dr. Ibrahim Bihi of Somaliland has an advanced degree in economics and, as far as worldly goods go, a goat with three legs. Using his knowledge of temporary market inefficiencies and the propellers of a UN food plane, he turns his goat into capital and sends the global economy into a speculative frenzy. Soon most of the world's wealth is tied up in goat-backed securities. What could possibly go wrong? Only everything, and with our faithful orphan Jude as guide, we can sit back and laugh our way toward the resolution of this uproariously instructive satire.

A version of "BANG!" was the first short story to be published in The Financial Times, where it appeared in 2003. The story also was adapted as a BBC radio play in 2009 and sold-out stage production in 2012. For listeners unacquainted with the wonderful and bizarre universe of Julian Gough's literary fiction, this companion to the bestselling short story "CRASH!' will serve as a perfect introduction.