Legal personhood – the foundational concept of most current legal systems – is unravelling, particularly in relation to animal life. A new legal regime is needed; I argue the central concept of this new jurisprudence should be the right to singularity. Recent cases, including the ‘monkey selfie’ case, show that literature could lead the way to effect this transformation, viz. from the Enlightenment law of personhood to a law to come centered on the right to singularity. Literary readings of Franz Kafka, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Eric Chevillard further demonstrate the ecological and political import of the right to singularity.
