Representations of Xenophobia and Animalisation in Zebra Crossing, Zoo City and Wolf, Wolf

Abstract

SummaryThis article explores the depiction of xenophobia and animalisation in three recent South African novels to determine whether these narratives offer ways of reimagining relations with others. It is specifically interested in the depiction of encounters with those dehumanised by xenophobic discourse as well as the ways in which animals figure in these texts. The texts under discussion are: Meg Vandermerwe’s Zebra Crossing (2013), Lauren Beukes’s Zoo City (2010) and Eben Venter’s Wolf, Wolf (2013). All three novels, in unusual ways, engage with xenophobia and employ animals, animal metaphors and animalised humans in their narratives. All trouble the boundaries between self and other and centre bodies as the place from which relations with others are conducted. This article will focus on the descriptions of African migrants in these texts, and the manner in which they are animalised. It will also question the extent to which writing embodied others – be they animal or foreigner – remains a way of writing about the embodied self. Finally, this article will consider whether the use of animal metaphors disrupts humanist exhortations against xenophobia.