Authors, critics and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the comments
I have a longstanding beef with literature which shies away from the truly dramatic, as if keeping the cameras rolling during the sex scene, the bank robbery or the car crash is the preserve of genre fiction. Tender Is the Flesh by the Argentinian author Agustina Bazterrica, translated by Sarah Moses (the original title “Cadáver exquisito” – Exquisite Corpse – is even better) takes a blood-spattered rotary saw to that prudish convention. It is set in a dystopian future where, after a plague which makes other animals dangerous for people to eat, some humans are bred for their meat. The protagonist Marcos manages one of the human slaughterhouses. To say I enjoyed this would be the wrong word, but I was utterly gripped and it was thrilling to see a literary novel kicking over the traces so gleefully.
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