The Unworthy
FICTION, PRH, 2023. 185 PAGES.
«No one refuses the Mother Superior. Not if they want to stay alive, that is.»
The earth is ravaged by environmental catastrophes and wars over access to water.
The weather can lurch from freezing to boiling in a matter of hours, the air is thick with pestilence and the atmosphere gummed up by cobwebby clouds. In this desolate reality, several women have taken refuge in the House of the Sacred Sisterhood, placing themselves at the mercy of a religious cult where they are subjected to torture and forced to make sacrifices in a quest to achieve enlightenment. The house is run with an iron fist by the Mother Superior, above whom there is only ‘Him'. Who is He? No one knows much, it is forbidden to see him and He exercises control from the shadows.
Structured as a series of diary entries in which the protagonist chronicles ceremonies, events, and discoveries at night, these pages are replete with secrets but betray little hope of escape beyond the notion that someone might one day come across them and learn what became of the people described therein.
Agustina Bazterrica, the author of the unforgettable Tender is the Flesh, brings us her new, long-awaited novel set in a disturbing dystopia in which a malevolent false god gleams in the darkness abusing his followers but also surreptitiously building powerful bonds of friendship.
«Disturbing from its first pages. (...) Pushes the reader to the limit to cause him as much vertigo as doubts about himself. (...) Highly recommended»
Ana Bretón, El Mundo
«The Argentine writer is back with an astonishing story that establishes her as one of the most relevant voices in horror literature. Passionate, lucid, brilliant...».
Publishers Weekly
«The new novel by Agustina Bazterrica is as breathtaking as her previous work, Cadáver exquisito»
La Razón
«Agustina did it again. With beauty, with talent, with a redemptive cadence, with horror and always but always with good literature».
Valentina Vidal
«This is perhaps one of the most interesting futuristic works of the last year [...] Reading Las indignas is almost an obligation».
Cine y Literatura
PUBLISHED BY: Spanish PRH | China THE WRITERS PUBLISHING HOUSE | Czech Republic KNIHY DOBROVSKY | France FLAMMARION | Greece PATAKIS | Germany SUHRKAMP | Hungary METROPOLIS MEDIA GROUP | Netherlands MERIDIAAN | Poland KOBIECE | Russia EKSMO | Türkiye SIREN YAYINLARI | United Kingdom PUSHKIN PRESS | Ukraine MORPHEUS | USA SCRIBNER
Other titles from Agustina Bazterrica:
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Nineteen claws and a dark bird
SHORT STORIES, 2020
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NOVEL, 2017
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SHORT STORIES, 2016
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