Law, Viral Mutations, and Spectral Tropicality in Agustina Bazterrica’s <em>Tender Is the Flesh</em> (2017)

Introduction: Spectral Tropicality and Viral Mutations In mid-February 2025, the World Health Organization issued an alert in its weekly bulletin about an emerging outbreak of a mysterious disease in two villages in Equateur Province in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (WHO). This alert generated two major reports in the press: the first was that the disease could kill in less than 48 hours; the second was that there was an ongoing investigation into the possibility that the disease had started in three children who ingested a bat carcass (and who died with severe symptoms of hemorrhagic fever a few hours later). Experts at the time pointed out that the repercussions of the possible link between bat ingestion and the emergence of the disease were justified, since these animals are reservoirs of viruses such as Nipah, Marburg, Ebola, MERS-CoV, and, finally, SARS-CoV-2 (Rojek et al.). However, a few days later, this hypothesis was discarded by the WHO itself, when it found evidence that the contamination could be related to tainted water (Cohen). The media repercussions of the case above exemplify how public opinion is sensitive to disruptive events originating in the tropics—an area traditionally viewed through a dichotomy that, on the one hand, evokes the region as exotic, biodiverse, and paradisiacal and, on the other, as hostile, inhospitable, uncontrollable, and unhealthy (Benitez; Lundberg). Once understood as the white man’s tomb (Curtin), the tropics today reaffirm their agency through tropicality, functioning as a spectre that raises the horror of the dissolution of dreams, intentions, illusions of control, rights, justice, and, to a certain extent, human existence itself (Harvey). Spectral Tropicality is thus the phantasmagorical return of the ambivalent dimension of the tropics that destabilises any certainty and security regarding knowledge, control, or dominion over life. This article analyses how spectral tropicality becomes manifest through a highly mutagenic virus in Tender Is the Flesh (Cadáver Exquisito) by the Argentine writer Agustina Bazterrica, drastically altering the law to legalise cannibalism. In this book, patterns of meat consumption and production are transformed by the emergence of an infectious agent that contaminates all animals and is deadly to humans. In this scenario, the drastic transformation of laws as an effect of the virus’s high evasive capacity against efforts to produce vaccines and medicines is a symptom of spectral tropicality. This tropicality becomes even more powerful in the face of the devastating epidemics and pandemics emerging in the wake of the current planetary and climate crisis. The GGB Virus as a Mutation-Power Tender Is the Flesh presents a dystopian scenario in which a devastating virus contaminates all animals, making their flesh lethal to humans. Called GGB, the virus is described in the book as highly contagious, affecting a wide range of animal species, but transmitted to humans through the consumption of animal meat. The origin of the virus remains unclear, but its consequences are catastrophic for human society, leading to a ban on the consumption of animal meat due to its virulence. To contain the public health crisis, governments around the world implement drastic measures to eradicate farm animals and prohibit meat consumption. This scenario results in an extreme social transformation, where practices of cannibalism are institutionalised as a response to the scarcity of animal protein. Marcos Tejo lives in a small town in the north of Argentina, where he works as an administrator at a human abattoir, overseeing the production and slaughter of people bred for consumption. His role involves managing the "production" process to ensure it complies with the established regulations. As a form of bonus for his work, he receives a woman, described in the book as "prime meat" for consumption. The Argentine setting contributes to the creation of a subtropical and suffocating scenario, where the heat and humidity reinforce the feeling of decadence and despair in the plot. The vulnerability of women in this context is explored extensively in the book, as poor women are raised as livestock for both human consumption and reproduction. Here, we see the continuation of a capitalist pattern of exploiting animal flesh, which, in this case, extends to the flesh of women—illustrating a strong association between animal and female exploitation in a patriarchal regime, as explored in the philosophy of Carol J. Adams (Mercier). Tender Is the Flesh is part of a group of literary works, the starting point of which is a highly lethal disease that induces drastic changes on a planetary level, giving rise to morbid persistences associated with patriarchy and the capitalist system (Costa; Schneider). The GGB virus can be considered a mutation-power, a pathogen that evades human attempts at knowledge and control, while reconfiguring the material, social, political, and symbolic dimensions of life. This term may be used with inspiration from the concept of thing-power, as analysed in Jane Bennett’s vital materialism. While thing-power may suggest the centrality of objects, it actually refers to a heterogeneous assembly of bodies, elements, forces, ideas, institutions, and other factors that emerge as events—producing contingent effects that operate with and against human intentions, actions, and thoughts (Bennett). Agency here is not localised but arises from multiple sources that combine human and nonhuman characteristics. Although thing-power encompasses the dynamism of matter itself, the GGB virus points to something beyond that: a pathogenic agent with a high capacity to evade scientific research and defy explanation or containment. In the narrative, reality manifests as a recurring trauma that undermines human intentions, actions, and assumptions of control over the world—revealing the fragility of the self-sufficient universe of reason upon which the capitalist system is built (Kolozova). Thus, it is worth saying that due to its extreme complexity and dynamic nature, the virus represents a mutation-power that at times remains in obscurity and, most often, in complete darkness for the reader. The pandemic in the novel persists within the realm of the unthinkable, serving primarily a dramatic function that envelops the virus in a fog of mystery—raising more questions and doubts than it resolves. The virus as mutation-power in Bazterrica’s work sheds light on themes related to cruelty, survival, and dehumanisation. However, it also explores an underlying ambiguity in the face of a cataclysmic event. The pandemic caused by the GGB virus promotes a dissolution of the past, yet society’s reaction reinforces an attachment to and dependence on certain idealised aspects of that past—out of which extreme solutions emerge to preserve the illusion of life continuing as it was. The meat industry, governments, and the social attachment to meat consumption are all forces that reshape society to adapt to the new reality, producing extreme solutions that eerily resemble older patterns. It is the terror of losing the past—of losing the stability of customs and everything to which one is emotionally anchored (Whitehead)—that fuels speculation about how such horror might materialise in the face of global dissolution. The novel questions how far society can go to ensure the survival of outdated models and how social norms may be distorted under extreme conditions. It exposes the fragility of those norms, highlighting how severe crises can lead to a re-evaluation of values and practices previously deemed unacceptable—all in the name of preserving entrenched economic and cultural systems. The Law and the Sanitisation of Cannibalism In Bazterrica’s work, the legalisation of cannibalism and the breeding of humans for consumption reflect the dissolution of ethical and moral norms in times of extreme crisis. Society is divided into two classes: those who consume human flesh and those who are raised for slaughter, resulting in widespread dehumanisation. The construction and evolution of law emerge here as central elements in maintaining patterns of meat production and consumption in a collapsing society. In this sense, the GGB virus functions as a mutation-power that influences decisions at the legal level. The idea that nonhumans can act in some way within the legal sphere or initiate legal processes is supported by Western history itself. Philosopher Jane Bennett cites historical and contemporary cases in which things, animals, and elements act within legal frameworks. One example is the deodand (meaning “that which must be given to God”) in eleventh-century English law—objects, animals, or elements that caused death or harm to people, and were subsequently confiscated and sold by the Crown as a form of compensation. Another example Bennett discusses involves objects used as material evidence in criminal cases—items that function as actants by intervening in legal proceedings (Bennett 9). Other historical conceptions of nonhuman legal agency also exist. In the early modern period, animals and insects could be the subjects of lawsuits. This was the case with the green weevil (likely Otiorhynchus sulcatus), which devastated vineyards in eastern France in the sixteenth century and was the focus of a prolonged legal process marked by repeated motions and delays (Cabral; Vital). Between the fourteenth and seventeenth centuries, major catastrophes such as storms, droughts, and fires were sometimes considered evidence of crimes—often attributed to witches in cases of so-called climate magic in Europe (Behringer). With the consolidation of Cartesian realism and modern science—along with the resulting dualisms of nature–culture and mind–matter—nonhumans came to be regarded as more or less inert objects. However, this idea is now being significantly challenged by the growing prominence of non