Mateo works as a herdsman of goats and sheep in Abra, a remote village in the province of Córdoba. He is smart and inquisitive, and due to the lack of incentives in his life he suffers from a severe depression. Only Lázaro Esquivel, a newcomer teacher, is able to get him out of his lethargy using an unorthodox therapy, at the same time that the II Republic of Spain is proclaimed. Once recovered, the first goal of the herdsman will be winning back Conchita, his ex-girlfriend. His second goal will be encouraging reading to get the village of Abra out of its ancient lack of culture. He will try to achieve this with a false veterinary experiment between goats and sheep that will put the whole village to read Cervantes’ Quixote and Marx’s Capital.

The novel, set in the rural Andalusia at the beginnings of the 30s, suggests the possibility of a total metamorphosis of society through knowledge and the change of moral values as consequence. More than a rural comedy, Cervantes is for goats, Marx is for sheep is a fable about the love of books, the faith in classic authors and the transformative power of reading.