Tongue

The more I learnt about the tongue the less certain I became about what the organ was for, which made me doubtful about what it really was.

A young researcher works in a university archive, intent on unveiling the history of the human tongue, its strange metaphors and hidden uses. The archival materials conjure memories of her own past, transporting her home, half a world away, into the silence lodged between herself and her mother. Alongside the academic work, she begins a second manuscript through which a personal reckoning takes place. Between library stacks and text messages, she confronts her own struggle to articulate the unspoken legacy that has shaped her past.

Framed through her research into the tongue and its untold cultural significance, Kathryn Crowcroft's debut explores how the organ has been cast as both sacred and sinful across centuries. Tongue takes the shape of a nodal essay, composed of discrete cells that mirror the form of the organ itself: porous, muscular, bifurcated. Written in the shadow of gendered violence, and attuned to the ways in which we speak and avoid speaking, the book offers a fierce, sensitive and unique articulation of the truths we learn to lie for. Tongue creates a radical space for silence to resonate - and an exploration of how a voice might piece together what has been severed.

'Muscular, reverent and beautifully researched, Tongue is a delicate archive of our past and present mysteries.' - Jessica Au