"We all have one — but we only notice it when we feel like biting it. A clever, funny and long overdue tribute to the organ of language, taste, pleasure."
Mithu Sanyal
"Florian Werner has always stood out for his original books and ideas."
Rainer Moritz, NDR Kultur
"In the tongue, the materiality of the bodily production of sounds meets the human capacity for language, babbling colliding with logos. Florian Werner combines the two in a highly visceral text, which artfully engages with slipperiness of its object of inquiry."
Lea Wintterlin, Philosophie Magazin
"In his portrait, Florian Werner explores the essence, power, and uncanny independence of the tongue."
Hendrik Heinze, BR24
Florian Werner explores all the facets of this fascinating part of the body in his cultural history of the tongue.
Talking, tasting, licking, kissing, poking out – the human tongue is the social muscle par excellence. But if you want respect, you’d better keep your tongue under control. We should be wary of his organ as it is central to how we relate to the world. It’s as if the tongue has a mind of its own. In this groundbreaking book, Florian Werner describes the tongue in all its complexity: an organ of language and taste, an erogenous zone and an obscene sign, as well as an object of literature and art, music and film, Tongue is a fitting tribute.