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3.5 

Ink

By Sabrina Vourvoulias & Kathleen Alcalá
Ink by Sabrina Vourvoulias & Kathleen Alcalá digital book - Fable

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Publisher Description

"A page-turner in the best sense, this is a heart-thumping, unflinching look at lives, loves and escapades in an America where fear of the Other has blown away any pretense of democratic ideals. But where there's terror and betrayal, there is also love, and courage, and humor. This is a book for our times."


-- Vandana Singh, physicist and author of Ambiguity Machines and Other Stories

13 Reviews

3.5
“On dehumanisation in ‘Ink’, by Sabrina Vourvoulias This post briefly summarises and discusses themes in the novel, Ink, by Sabrina Vourvoulias. The 2012 novel was provided as a set text during the Posthumanism module of my Cultural and Critical Studies (MA) degree. For that reason this post is ‘part mini-review’ and part discussion on how the novel provides a way to explore ideas related to posthumanism; specifically for this text, the concept of dehumanisation. Vourvoulias’ ancestry is fascinating in its own right and explains much of the passion with which she writes on certain topics, specifically immigration and South American mythology. Vourvoulias’ father was American, born in Chicago to Greek immigrant parents, but raised in Latin America. Vourvoulias’ mother was born and raised in Mexico, then Guatemala, becoming a U.S. citizen two years before her death. This short bio could be described as the backstory, almost the plot, of Ink. The genre of the book I would describe as supernatural (as in magical realism) dystopian fiction. I can’t decide if I agree with describing this as dystopian. Reading it in 2023, many of the issues dealt with in the text feel hyperreal and current or historically true. The book relates a story in a world where immigrants in the United States have been marked indelibly with biometric tattoos. These immigrants, mostly from South America, are given colour coded tattoos which signify their origin and status. These people are referred to as “inks”. Anti-immigrant rhetoric results in the inks being scapegoated and subjected to increasingly harsh reprisals from the both the government and vigilantes. The “Cleanse America” vigilante group which kidnaps inks and dumps them over the border did not feel like a stretch of the imagination in today’s world. Many of these inks (and some of the non-inks) possess spirit animals (los nahuales) with varying associated magical powers. The story is narrated by different characters throughout the novel as the lives of the inks are made increasingly awful by an authoritarian government and angry mobs spurred on by anti-immigrant rhetoric. I could just as well be describing Britain in 2023 by this point. As the plot unfolds, various alliances are formed between citizens, spirits, gangsters and geeky teenagers. The love story between one of these teenagers and a gang member has made the book popular and I am not the only reader that was surprised to find themselves rooting for the gang! It’s almost a fun YA romp, except when it’s not because the story had me in tears multiple times and there are some really unpleasant (but not gratuitous) scenes. It’s solid and that’s as much of a review as I am going to attempt here. The rest of this post explores how the story allows for a good discussion on the posthuman themes mentioned at the beginning. The following section contains spoilers It will be interesting to hear the views of other students and how they interpreted dehumanisation through their reading of this text.”
“A retelling of history and a signal of the future. Vourvoulias’ talented storytelling leaves fear and hope for what can come from policies of intolerance. This book is important, please read it.”

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