'A thrilling dystopia that everyone should read' DAZED'A hideous, bold, unforgettable vision of the future' i-D MAGAZINE'A gut-churning, brilliantly realised novel' DAILY MAIL

If everyone was eating human meat, would you?

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 specimen of the finest quality. He leaves her tied up in an outhouse, 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...



Agustina Bazterrica is an Argentinian novelist and short-story writer. She is a central figure in the Buenos Aires literary scene, working as a cultural organiser and workshop curator. She has received several awards for her writing, most notably the Premio Clarín Novela for Tender is the Flesh, which has been translated into over 20 languages. Her short stories, Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird, and her third novel, The Unworthy, are also available from Pushkin Press.Sarah Moses is a Canadian writer and translator of French and Spanish. Her translations include Tender is the Flesh, Urgent Matters by Paula Rodríguez and Die, My Love by Ariana Harwicz, which was longlisted for the International Booker Prize, among other awards.



Bazterrica's writing is ferocious; she has vision and intent. When you least expect it, her narrative hits her target, and leaves you trembling



Absolutely disgusting, utterly gripping



This is a hideous, bold and unforgettable vision of the future. Just make sure you've eaten before picking it up



What a compelling, terrible beauty this novel is. My heart was breaking even as my skin was crawling



A thrilling dystopia that everyone should read



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



Sitting comfortably? Not after even the tiniest nibble of this gut-churning, brilliantly realised novel



Chilling... elegantly translated... [a] very contemporary parable



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



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



A compelling dystopian novel



Skin-crawling yet compelling read



Told with a chilly aloofness that makes the horror of it all the more disturbing



[A] provocative Argentinian prizewinner



Unflinching until the end, with a disturbing finale that leaves you as dazed as one of the poor specimens in the abbatoir



A brutal tale of what humans are capable of inflicting on themselves when social norms collapse. Grotesque, gloriously nasty. Utterly compelling



Fresh and exciting