“The War of the Worlds”: Relocating the Boundaries between the Human and the Non-Human

Abstract

Summary In two recent South African novels, universal questions on the relationship between humans and nature are discussed by foregrounding the regional angle. At the same time a wide range of environmental issues informs the narratives. While no easy solution for an endangered ecosystem is offered by either of the two texts, the bold ideas mooted contribute to the manifold dimensions of the ecological discourse. Witchcraft and political corruption have as much impact on the environment as aposymbiosis and urban decay. Deon Meyer's Blood Safari (2009) is an eco-thriller, set in the world-famous Kruger National Park. The narrative recounts the conflict between preservation and extinction, in a context of conflict between Western developers of tourism destinations and golf estates, land claims by indigenous communities, and violence between radical ecologists and traditional healers as well as international traffickers of animal body parts. Zoo City (2010) is the second novel written by Lauren Beukes and has been described as a combination of crime and magic, an urban thriller presenting a dark and dystopic view of Johannesburg in 2011. This narrative reports on widespread ecological devastation in the city widely known as the “City of Gold”, the financial capital of Africa; a ravaged surface swamped by refugees from all over Africa, which now mirrors the deep excavations and myriads of mine tunnels below. A comparative reading of the two texts exposes the huge anomalies between the interests of first and third-world cultures within the same country. Blood Safari articulates the more conventional ways of managing these divergent views while Zoo City presents a scenario where a community consisting of refugees and “animalled” criminals is shunned yet exploited by the pop culture of the “normal”, though disintegrating, society.