Zoo City by Lauren Beukes

Previously published in Dawn Books & Authors

When genius speculative fiction and cyber-punk prophet William Gibson describes a book by a young writer by saying ‘it’s very *very* good’, the world of science fiction and urban fantasy had better be paying attention. South African writer Lauren Beukes second novel Zoo City had been making waves on the sci-fi circuit for quite some time before it won the Arthur C. Clarke award earlier this year, probably because Gibson was completely correct and almost every critic who read the book praised it just as highly.  

ZooCity is set in Johannesburg, is a city already rife with civil unrest and frightening amounts of crime, making it a prime landscape for urban fantasy.  The book is not set in a distant future, but one very familiar to contemporary readers, with the exception of the sudden ‘Zoo Plague’ or ‘Acquired Aposymbiotic Familiarism’ that has spread fast across the world in the last decade or so. New Scientist calls Zoo City an ‘urbanised magic realism [featuring] criminal outcasts whose guilt manifests as symbiotic animal companions.’ ZooCity’s protagonist Zinzi December and any others involved in the deaths or murders of another person have since been ‘animalled’ – each person affected by the plague has his or her own live animal familiar. They are looked down upon as a sort of untouchable class because of their animal companions – no matter what the animal may be. Zinzi’s is a sloth – but some of the ‘animalled’ are burdened with animals as large and difficult as bears, or as small and fragile as sparrows or butterflies. This idea is very similar to Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy, with its idea of ‘daemons’ – live, physical animals connected emotionally to a human. ButPullman had set his trilogy in a world where this was the norm – not a plague or a curse. Beukes is quick to acknowledgePullman in her story, but just as fast to move along with her own version of it.

ZooCity doesn’t really go too deep into explaining its premise, immediately demanding intelligence and imagination of its reader. There is some reference to the plague in the shape of an entry from a documentary database that sheds light on Patient Zero of the ‘aposymbiots’ or the ‘animalled’, but does not explain the situation entirely. Beukes writes, ‘theories postulated that the outbreak of the animal phenomenon in Afghanistan was a result of the fallout of Pakistan’s nuclear tests in the neighboring Chagai Hills in 1998…[or] the animalled may date back to as early as the mid-80s’. It is here that a reference toPullman’s stories is made in passing and it is enough to absolve Beukes from any accusations of plagiarism because she acknowledgesPullman’s idea.  She goes on to successfully differentiate her take on this a great deal fromPullman’s version and makes the idea of a human and animal symbiotic pairing entirely hers.

Each of the ‘animalled’ has a special talent as well – it is not a superpower in the conventional meaning of the word, but it helps to eke out a living in a world that is not prepared to accept them. Zinzi is able to find things – a set of keys, a ring…or in the case of this narrative, a missing teenage singing superstar. While this creates the idea of fantasy, it also blends in seamlessly with the urban landscape ofJohannesburg- magic and shamanism being very much a part of folk culture in a great many ways in modernAfrica.

The narrative follows Zinzi as she investigates the disappearance of the young pop star. Beukes writes with humour, and there is much rollercoaster action in the form of a modern pulpy noir, with information teased out from bouncers at clubs and ex addicts at rehabilitation centres, a sleazy music producer, a briefcase full of counterfeit cash – everything adding to a speedy thriller with incredible hijinks, probably thanks to Beukes own experience as a journalist mixed with the seething, seedy atmosphere of Johannesburg itself.

Much of ZooCity seen through the eyes of someone who is marginalized by society but survives, yet Zinzi herself is a very likeable protagonist. Although she is far from perfect and is flawed in so many moral and emotional ways, not physically perfect either, she is highly sympathetic, three-toed sloth avatar, mangled ripped ear, self-destructive junkie tendencies and all. In addition, Beukes’ imagery is strong; her narrative is fast paced and keeps you on your toes. Some may wonder if her dénouement was too much and too fast for readers but slow down to read it and it will leave you breathless and exhausted, intrigued and repelled and wishing there was more.