Mostly Murders

Written in Spanish by Agustina Bazterrica and translated into English by Sarah Moses.

A brutal and dystopian tale of the oppressive nature of a society controlling and manipulating the population, not through violence or force, but through linguistics and peer pressure.

In Tender is the Flesh, the breeding and eating of humans has become the norm. “Special meat”, is a big and lucrative industry. The humans in question are referred to as specimens or heads, never as people, they are genetically modified or treated with various chemicals and, most importantly, they are nameless and voiceless. Thus dehumanised, the meat processing industry allows the general population to pretend that people are not cannibals consuming their fellow human beings, but simply consumers of protein. The population is taught hate and fear through fake news, and kept in ignorance by their own reluctance to question the status quo and incapacity for independent, critical thought.

Not for the faint of heart, Tender is the Flesh is mercilessly critical of consumerism, conformity and the idea that almost anything, no matter how horrible, can become normalised when people stop caring about each other and the world they live in. A brutal book with a shocking premise and an even more shocking end.

Horror – Dystopia – Science fiction