‘Serengotti’ by Eugen Bacon

Fiction – paperback; Transit Lounge; 288 pages; 2023. Review copy courtesy of the publisher.

Eugen Bacon’s Serengotti is a rare and unique novel.

The author is African-Australian and her writing marries the rhythm, colour and folklore of her native Tanzania with Melbourne’s sporting obsessions, Aussie slang and dry wit. The result is an intriguing cultural mix.

The narrative is fluid — it moves from black comedy to surrealist adventure to a love story to a murder mystery, and back again — making it hard to pin down. Nor does it follow a traditional structure.

Even the prose style — often disjointed, littered with wisecracks and full of “colourful” language — coupled with the use of a second-person point of view, gives the book a fresh and original edge. Suffice it to say, I’ve never read an Australian novel quite like it.

Distinctive protagonist

The central character is as distinctive as the story. Ch’anzu is 39, open-gendered (pronouns are zie/hir), wears a nose ring and has a box-cut hairstyle. On the same day zie loses hir presumably lucrative job as a computer programmer (how else could zie afford to live in a swanky apartment on Melbourne’s St Kilda Road?), Ch’anzu finds hir girlfriend Scarlet in a bed with a man and sends her packing.

Then Ch’anzu’s twin brother, Tex, starts harassing her by leaving drunken voicemails and text messages, claiming he’s broken up with his own girlfriend and could Ch’anzu lend him “some dosh?”

Ch’anzu is downhearted, feeling sorry for hirself (“God, it hurts”) and yearns to “pull on hiking boots, sling on a backpack, go away and not come back for six, ten years”.

You feel as though your whole life you’ve missed the train, like you should be somewhere you’re not. Nothing is sound. You’re like a kid whimpering at Burgerland, I said a double whammy with no onions or mayonnaise! The attendant saying, Sorry, kiddo! And you’re still stuck with stinkers and mayo. (page 37)

But then a job opportunity building a community health app in Wagga Wagga (“say it twice”) comes up and zie applies.

A woman with the kindliest voice calls back – it’s like talking to a friend. She’s wearing an accent you can’t place. Valarie, she introduces herself. ‘What do you know about black people?’
‘Yikes. Isn’t that like a bit —?’
‘Politically incorrect? You could say, but not really.’
‘Then I’m black. Afrocentric.’
‘Great!’ she says. ‘Job’s yours if you’ll take it.’
‘Just like that?’
‘What more is there? We love your CV.’
‘Do I get a company car?’
‘You don’t need one in Serengotti.’
‘Zie/hir,’ you say.
‘I beg yours?”
‘My pronouns are zie/hir.’
‘You can take whatever pronouns you like, dear, as long as you can code.’ (page 39)

Life at Serengotti

And so that’s how Ch’anzu moves about 500km north (on the Victoria/NSW border) to Serengotti, a (fictional) migrant African outpost in rural Australia, which recreates an African village, complete with a beauty salon, healing centre, restaurant and supermarket.

Many of the residents are deeply traumatised, having escaped war and violence of their homelands, or, as Valarie puts it:

“Hitler wasn’t the last zealot enacting a vision of ethnic cleansing. And you’d think people would learn from Bosnia. Rwanda. Liberia.” She spits her disdain on the ground. “The things people do for diamonds.” (page 94)

In Serengotti, Ch’anzu reconnects with elements of hir African culture — the cultural rituals, the folklore and superstitions, the food and drink — but zie also understands zie’s an outsider, and when mysterious things begin to happen in the village, Ch’anzu knows zie’ll be blamed for bringing bad luck with hir.

The book takes a suspenseful turn toward the end, when the (creepy, unbalanced) first-person voice of Ch’anzu’s brother Tex acts as an interlocutor, suggesting he’s committed a terrible crime and justifying his reasons for doing so.

It’s Ch’anzu’s charismatic Aunt Maé who offers emotional support, hard-won wisdom and kick-ass advice, and the story ends on a hopeful note, with Ch’anzu realising that losing hir Melbourne job and girlfriend Scarlet were “the earthquake I needed”:

“I was getting complacent and had to plummet into a volcano. But I’ve taught myself to believe, to haul myself out of terrible situations, and thrive.” (page 260)

For reviews that are more eloquent than mine, please see Bill’s at The Australian Legend and Lisa’s at ANZLitLovers.

I read this book as part of Reading Independent Publishers Month 4 #ReadIndies, hosted by Lizzy and Kaggsy. This event, which runs throughout February, is designed to showcase the books published by independent publishers across the world.

Transit Lounge is an Australian independent press based in Melbourne. It publishes both fiction and non-fiction and has a particular interest “in creative literary publishing that explores the relationships between East and West and entertains and promotes insights into diverse cultures”. You can find out more about them here.