I cannibali

Cannibalism is one of the most awkward and embarrassing customs we can imagine. We might eat human flesh out of hunger, for religious reasons or just out of curiosity, but never without a feeling of unease. Anthropophagy is surrounded by prohibitions even among the peoples who practice it. The editors of this anthology have drawn on all the printed works discussing both eaters of human flesh and the eaten. The presence of black humour and frivolity doesn’t make the subject any less perturbing; the spectres of aggression and that of incorporation, of burial in fraternal jaws, run through the book and outline a mythical background that echoes in a wide range of phenomena such as the erotic kiss or the Eucharist.