Abstract

Hypodermia is a novel about the ‘skin trade’ relayed through a cyberpunk and magic realist lens. It follows the trajectory of Investigation Officer Mehmet Akhavan who works for England’s National Crime Agency at the Port of Dover and unwittingly uncovers a conspiracy wherein snakeheads are selling the skins of refugees to underground illicit galleries and fashion shows. This is a dark, speculative tragi-comedy which, at its heart, acts as a political commentary on the United Kingdom’s treatment of migrants and, more globally, dives under the skin of modern slavery, drug trafficking and transplant tourism and the systematic exploitation that binds them along the same smuggling routes. The paths of a variety show host-turned-influencer, a televangelist legislator, a forensic scientist, a Syrian literature student and a deluded anatomy professor collide and coalesce in this alternate future that attempts to dissect the ways in which humans commodify and fetishize each other’s bodies. Mehmet’s pursuit of the truth will lead him to confront the weird, beautiful and horrific corners of a world set on turning its citizens into objects of art.