Truly chilling and recounted with a mounting sense of dread, Moses' dystopian thriller of a world where human cannibalism has become the mundane norm poses profoundly unsettling questions about what we eat and why we eat it.
It all happened so quickly. First, animals became infected with the virus and their meat became poisonous. Then governments initiated the Transition. Now, 'special meat' - human meat - is legal.
Marcos is in the business of slaughtering humans - only no one calls them that. He works with numbers, consignments, processing. One day, he's given a gift to seal a deal: a specimen of the finest quality. He leaves her in his barn, tied up, a problem to be disposed of later. But she haunts Marcos. Her trembling body, and watchful gaze, seem to understand. And soon, he becomes tortured by what has been lost - and what might still be saved.
Publisher: Pushkin Press
ISBN: 9781782276203
Number of pages: 224
Dimensions: 198 x 129 mm
Bazterrica's writing is ferocious; she has vision and intent. When you least expect it, her narrative hits her target, and leaves you trembling - Samanta Schweblin, author of 'Fever Dream'
Bazterrica plunges her readers into a whirlpool of indescribable inhumanity. This book will pull you in, take hold, and not let go until you reach the final page - perhaps far longer than that. Without a doubt, my favourite read of this year - Christina Dalcher, author of 'VOX'
What a compelling, terrible beauty this novel is. My heart was breaking even as my skin was crawling - Lisa McInerney, author of 'The Glorious Heresies'
There's nothing described that isn't done to livestock... grimly engrossing, with a sucker-punch ending. And it may well put you off that bacon sandwich - The Times
Sitting comfortably? Not after even the tiniest nibble of this gut-churning, brilliantly realised novel - Daily Mail
This is a hideous, bold and unforgettable vision of the future. Just make sure you've eaten before picking it up - i-D Magazine
Chilling... elegantly translated... [a] very contemporary parable - Observer
Horribly effective... This provocative novel expertly wields a double-edged cleaver... "in the end, meat is meat, it doesn't matter where it's from", it's a statement of both dystopic extremity and banal everyday fact - Guardian
Provocative, muscular and entirely unforgiving, this terrifying novel is a timely reminder that words have the power to strip us of our humanity. I gulped it down with my heart racing - Sue Rainsford, author of 'Follow Me to the Ground'
A thrilling dystopia that everyone should read - Dazed
A compelling dystopian novel - Independent
Skin-crawling yet compelling read - Refinery29
Told with a chilly aloofness that makes the horror of it all the more disturbing - Financial Times
[A] provocative Argentinian prizewinner - Guardian
Unflinching until the end, with a disturbing finale that leaves you as dazed as one of the poor specimens in the abbatoir - Culturefly
A brutal tale of what humans are capable of inflicting on themselves when social norms collapse. Grotesque, gloriously nasty. Utterly compelling - Lucie McKnight Hardy, author of Water Shall Refuse Them
Fresh and exciting - Washington Post
As you may well imagine, this book is intensely disturbing and grisly – how could it not be? Underneath the horror lies a furiously powerful, intelligent examination of human behaviour within societal constructs; how... More
Thanks to the Pushkin for sending me a review copy of this one. The striking cover suggests a great deal of horror within and that's certainly the case. The book follows the life of Marcos who lives in Argentina... More
Not for the faint of heart this story is powerful and kept me up until the early hours. I had to skim read some of the more brutal descriptions of how humans were treated as they were so vivid.
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