He becomes the readers’ connection to what is happening. Soon after this begins, the government sanctions what they call “The Transition” and “special meat” becomes a legal menu item. Even casual contact with animals can mean certain death for human beings. He finds himself in a world where an infectious virus has made all forms of regular animal meat poisonous for human consumption. The author makes it clear just how it could happen. Could a virus infect all meat fit for consumption? Could governments eventually approve the consumption of human flesh as the only viable alternative? In this world, the answers are yes and yes. Genre fans and others will come to appreciate the world Bazterrica creates as she deftly crafts a place that is both abhorrent to our current norms, yet so close to a real possibility.

This book holds appeal for a wide variety of readers. Why the English literature history lesson? Agustina Bazterrica’s newest novel, Tender is the Flesh, shares similarities in subject, tone, and unsettling ideas, yet is wholly unique.

Titled A Modest Proposal, this essay is shocking in its matter-of-factness. Agustina Bazterrica, Tender is the Flesh.įed up with government inaction, Jonathan Swift proposed the cannibalization of babies and young children as a valid (and satirical) solution to starvation and overpopulation in 1729 Ireland. The Transition enabled us to be less hypocritical.' If not symbolically, then we’ve been literally gorging on each other. “After all, since the world began, we’ve been eating each other.

Tender flesh book