Tender is the Flesh by Augustina Bazterrica is an anything but tender dystopian horror examining dehumanization and the hierarchical value assigned to life. The author and translator wrote in blunt and visceral prose, allowing some of the greatest horror of the book to come from the world building more than the plot. While the narrative was slow to start and the characters are unlikable, something about the book seemed hauntingly plausible. It’s worth a read.
In a world overcome by a virus (sound familiar?) all animal meat poses a serious risk of infection to humans. Consequently cannibalism is legalized (well, that escalated quickly) and human beings known as heads are bred for the purpose of consumption. People begin supplying meat and other “animal products” in the place of chickens, cows, etc. Apparently criminals can also be sentenced to the municipal slaughterhouse.
Some see this book and it’s graphic descriptions of human begins facing the meat and animal processing we currently apply to animals in the real world as a work of vegan literature. I personally found far more meaning in this work as a study on how readily people may be dehumanized. How many aspects of contemporary life depend on exploited or underpaid workers, poor environmental practices, etc. If many of us are so willing to explicitly or implicitly see others as being of less worth than ourselves, as evidenced by our continued compliance with systems of inequity, than is cannibalism replacing animal meat really such a stretch?
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