Pink Slime — Fernanda Trias

Longlisted for the 2024 NATIONAL BOOK AWARD for Translated Literature
MOST ANTICIPATED by Los Angeles Times, Paste and more • A Dakota Johnson x TeaTime Book Club Pick

A harrowing, intimate novel about a woman and the people who depend on her as the world around them teeters on the edge -- marking an award-winning Latin American author's US debut.

“Evocative, dreamlike, and immersive...The disconcerting familiarity of this strange, windswept world will haunt you.” -- Esquire • “An intimate, melancholic look at an ecologically ravaged future.” -- Silvia Moreno-Garcia, author of Mexican Gothic and Silver Nitrate

In a city ravaged by a mysterious plague, a woman tries to understand why her world is falling apart. An algae bloom has poisoned the previously pristine air that blows in from the sea. Inland, a secretive corporation churns out the only food anyone can afford -- a revolting pink paste, made of an unknown substance. In the short, desperate breaks between deadly windstorms, our narrator stubbornly tends to her few remaining relationships: with her difficult but vulnerable mother; with the ex-husband for whom she still harbors feelings; with the boy she nannies, whose parents sent him away even as terrible threats loomed. Yet as conditions outside deteriorate further, her commitment to remaining in place only grows -- even if staying means being left behind.

An evocative elegy for a safe, clean world, Pink Slime is buoyed by humor and its narrator's resiliency. This unforgettable novel explores the place where love, responsibility, and self-preservation converge, and the beauty and fragility of our most intimate relationships.