The Unworthy

女性主義恐怖大師Bazterrica繼《Tender Is the Flesh》又一部犀利深刻、令人難忘的小說

在一個神秘修道院的牢房裡，一個女人用她能找到的任何東西——廢棄的墨水、泥土，甚至她自己的血液，寫下了她的生活故事。
作為神聖姐妹會的低階成員，她是「不值得之人」，她取悅令人生畏的高階姐妹，夢想著晉升到啟蒙者行列，對外面世界正遭受自然災害一無所知——城市被淹沒在水下，沒有電力和互聯網，倖存者們在殘酷荒蕪的環境中戰鬥、搜尋生還者。在修道院裡面，她雖受到控制，受到懲罰，卻很安全。
當一個陌生人越過修道院圍牆，加入「不值得之人」的行列，迫使主角憶起她早已被埋沒的過去——以及她可能忽視的關於揀選啟蒙者的事。隨著兩個女人的關係越來越親密，主角越來越被自己的過去、未來的環境以及修道院生活種種問題困擾。她是如何加入神聖姊妹會的？她怎麼就不記得以前的生活了呢？當一位女性被選為啟蒙者之一時，究竟會發生什麼事？

The long-awaited new novel from the author of global sensation Tender Is the Flesh: a thrilling work of literary horror about a woman cloistered in a secretive, violent religious order, while outside the world has fallen into chaos.

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.