Tender Is The Flesh by Agustina Bazterrica (translated by Sarah Moses) explores what it truly means to feast on life. 

The novel exists in a dystopian society where a virus has contaminated all animal meat. Instead of adopting veganism as the new standard global food diet, humanity has resorted to cannibalism. 

We follow our protagonist Marcos, a human meat supplier, as he goes through professional and personal conflicts that naturally overlap. When we meet Marcos, he is a middle aged man facing both romantic and familial loss. He seems conflicted yet complacent with this new normal. 

Marcos describes how upon the first instances of cannibalism appearing in the news, the idea that ‘meat is meat’ no matter the source, was quickly normalised in society. Much like the livestock farming industry, this one is also hierarchical, with the ‘weakest’ of society (women, people of colour, migrants, etc) being the lowest on the food chain. 

The major themes of this novel are critiques on consumerism, misogyny, the meat industry, and systemic oppression and how this intersects with corruption and greed on both a personal and systemic level. 

‘Tender Is The Flesh’ is disturbing, moving and dare I say, meaty. While you may enter the story with a firm stance on cannibalism (hopefully a negative one), this is almost challenged as we view Marcos and his role through a somewhat sympathetic lens. He feels like a man forced to complacency to survive. It asks the question — how far would you go to serve your own interests? 

Once you reflect upon that in context of current affairs, you would realize that we are not quite as far off from this dystopian reality as we should be. 

I would recommend this novel to any lovers of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood or I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman. 

Please note that this novel as well as the other two suggestions can be incredibly triggering as there are themes of assault and violence throughout. Reader discretion is advised.