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About The Book
From her cell in a mysterious convent, a woman writes the story of her life in whatever she can find—discarded ink, dirt, and even her own blood. A lower member of the Sacred Sisterhood, deemed an unworthy, she dreams of ascending to the ranks of the Enlightened at the center of the convent and of pleasing the foreboding Superior Sister. Outside, the world is plagued by catastrophe—cities are submerged underwater, electricity and the internet are nonexistent, and bands of survivors fight and forage in a cruel, barren landscape. Inside, the narrator is controlled, punished, but safe.
But when a stranger makes her way past the convent walls, joining the ranks of the unworthy, she forces the narrator to consider her long-buried past—and what she may be overlooking about the Enlightened. As the two women grow closer, the narrator is increasingly haunted by questions about her own past, the environmental future, and her present life inside the convent. How did she get to the Sacred Sisterhood? Why can’t she remember her life before? And what really happens when a woman is chosen as one of the Enlightened?
A searing, dystopian tale about climate crisis, ideological extremism, and the tidal pull of our most violent, exploitative instincts, this is another unforgettable novel from a master of feminist horror.
Product Details
- Publisher: Scribner (March 4, 2025)
- Length: 192 pages
- ISBN13: 9781668051887
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Raves and Reviews
“This heartrending postapocalyptic tale from Bazterrica (Tender Is the Flesh) examines religious devotion and the search for tenderness in a world torn apart by climate collapse. Moses’s translation is marvelous, capturing the lush lyricism with which Bazterrica describes the most harrowing extremes of human experience. Calling to mind Cormac McCarthy and Chelsea G. Summers, this is as beautiful as it is brutal.”
—Publishers Weekly
"The Unworthy is unflinching, uncompromising, and unforgettable. Agustina Bazterrica shines a light at the end of the brutal and bleak path we are on so that maybe, just maybe, we can turn around and forge a new one."
—Paul Tremblay, New York Times bestselling author of Horror Movie and A Head Full of Ghosts
"Barbaric, brutal, and utterly beautiful. The Unworthy is a searing haunt of a novel that I will never forget."
—Lucy Rose, author of The Lamb
"Brutal and aching. A perfect fever dream of a book."
—Heather Darwent, author of The Things We Do To Our Friends
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- Book Cover Image (jpg): The Unworthy Trade Paperback 9781668051887
- Author Photo (jpg): Agustina Bazterrica Photograph by Lina Botero(0.1 MB)
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