‘Mala carne’ by Sofía Almiroty

Ariana and her grandmother Rosa Funes take the bus from Buenos Aires to El Cañadon, so Rosa can say goodbye to the town where she grew up. Before travelling, Ariana and Rosa  packed up all of Rosa’s belongings and closed her house, because she does not intend to return. Their bus crosses the Patagonian desert and shakes like a washing machine through gravel roads. This motion threatens the decomposing skin of Rosa, for whom even a tissue feels like sandpaper. Ariana, the first-person narrator of their journey, compares her grandmother’s body to the desert: with dry, prickly seedlings, and reddish colours alternating with ochre and brown. Rosa’s skin has been ravaged by a rare cancer that makes it useless as a protective barrier – it is only a matter of time before Rosa will have to face a fatal systemic infection. Ariana clutches a bag with precious provisions, including morphine flasks pilfered by Juan, an anaesthetist at the hospital Rosa frequented. They hope their loot will be enough to keep Rosa’s excruciating pain at bay. If they run out of morphine, what will Ariana do to assist Rosa as death approaches? Ariana found out from Juan that, among hospital staff, Rosa was known as ‘la mujer de la carne viva’ (the raw-flesh woman). For Ariana, she is lineage – a confidant with whom she shares much more than blood. The story of Rosa’s last days is the central plot of Mala carne (bad flesh), the debut novel by Sofía Almiroty, which is inspired by her own relationship and conversations with her grandmother. The main narrative is punctuated by chapters that contain solely Rosa’s words; such passages are based on recordings the author made of her own grandmother Rosa Adaime, who suffered from the same skin disease as the novel’s protagonist. Prior to ‘Mala carne’, Almiroty published an essay with selected transcriptions of these recordings, and presented on her archival work at an event hosted by CCEBA, the Spanish Cultural Centre in Buenos Aires, explaining her intention to ground the voice and worldview of her grandmother in the materiality of photographic and audio recordings.

Though Sofía Almiroty is from Argentina, where her novel is set, the book was published in Spain by La Niña Azul. The different national contexts are relevant: while Spain legalized euthanasia and medically assisted suicide in 2021 (Ley Orgánica 3/2021), those procedures remain illegal in Argentina. In 2012, Argentina approved a law on the right to refuse medical treatment (Ley 26.742) – a procedure sometimes referred to as ‘orthothanasia’ or ‘passive euthanasia’ – but that would still not make it legal for someone like Ariana to administer morphine to assist in the death of someone like Rosa; the question of who has access to and control over that procedure is at the core of the novel. Almiroty tells elDiario that her novel intends to promote a ‘reflection on how there are as many deaths as there are people’, adding that we need a debate ‘on how to support people in the final stages [of life] so that we can do that with more information and not so much fear’ (translated from the Spanish). In interviews, Almiroty has also underscored the different receptions of Mala carne in the two countries: Spanish media discussed how the novel addresses the ailments and situations that can lead someone to pursue an assisted death, whereas the book has not generated much impact in Argentina – where, according to the author, the debate on assisted death is not yet as developed and the right to abortion (which Almiroty sees as related) is threatened by far-right candidates. Agency, family, the intimacy of care, the coldness of bureaucracy, and the everydayness of dying are important to the novel, as noted by traditional news sources and Substack newsletters. Writing for El País, Álex Vicente recommends the novel and sees it as part of a trend of caretakers featured as protagonists in contemporary film and literature – a synergistic cultural praise of those who assist in dying. The SerCuidadorA channel of the Cruz Roja (the Spanish branch of the Red Cross) has promoted the novel on LinkedIn as an example of end-of-life care based on the author’s experience caring for her grandmother.