Tender is the Flesh - grotesque yet timely

Without a doubt, my favourite read of the year has to be Tender Is the Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses and published by Scribner. On the surface, this dystopian tale of a cannibalistic society appears both horrific and immensely bleak, and though Bazterrica skilfully and viscerally captures the darkness, she does so in a way that has you instantly engrossed. The new wave in literature, particularly by female authors, of the macabre, bodily and sensuous, evocatively captures the internal twisting and harboured simmering rage that women today are wrestling with. Especially in this era, post-MeToo and with the repealing of Roe V Wade, existing within a female-identifying body feels particularly volatile and precarious. The threatening lack of bodily autonomy and agency thus lends itself well to fiction and speculative imaginings, particularly in the realm of the body and flesh. A Certain Hunger and Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke, along with Tender Is the Flesh are specific standouts to me, particularly as I wrote my MA dissertation on the embodiment of female rage with a specific focus on affect, queerness and sensuality, these books encapsulate all of these themes.

Relishing in the horrific, disturbing, and gruesome, the most crucial theme that emerges within the novel is that of language. Thinking of the sterile, bloodless meat that is sold within our supermarkets that hides any resemblance of the animal it once came from, the disconnect works to absolve any guilt and obscure the process. The language surrounding meat in this book works in the same way, yet this meat is human, disguised through the ambiguous euphemism of ‘special meat’. Bazterrica deftly depicts the murkiness of modern morality, using language to perpetuate disconnection in this truly dehumanised world, using an allegorical depiction of complex complicity. Particularly in the primary culling stages that claim the poor, immigrants and minorities first, these cannibalism practices, instead of being forbidden, are legalised, industrialised and monetised. Bazterrica shows us how easily engrained atrocities can become when reinforced by power structures and tied to profit, and as an American Studies student who has long studied the history of the slave trade, we do not have to look too far into the past to see real-world examples of this. Timely, necessary and grotesquely fascinating, this portrait of our society shows how language can only be vague in the face of such unfathomable situations, sticking with me (and making me thankful to be vegetarian).