Giraffe

Overview

Marking the debut of an unforgettable talent, this haunting novel rescues a tragedy from historical oblivion in a voice that engulfs the reader like a rapturous dream. In 1975 the largest captive herd of giraffes in the world was slaughtered in the zoo of a small Czechoslovakian town, a massacre that has never been explained. Exploring this mystery, Giraffe is a story, at once vivid and unearthly, of creatures that are alien and silent, of the inhabitants of a totalitarian state, sleepwalking through the "Communist moment," and of captivity and destruction of many kinds. Brilliantly transporting, Giraffe is a modern fable about the ways in which ordinary people become complicit in the crimes committed in their midst, as well as the power of living creatures to enchant us into wakefulness.

Editorial Reviews

This phantasmagoric debut novel by Economist correspondent Ledgard recounts the extermination of the world's largest captive herd of giraffes in a Czechoslovakian zoo in 1975. The story begins with the animals' 1973 capture in East Africa (narrated by Snehurka, the herd leader); then Emil, a haemodynamicist (a biologist who studies vertical blood flow), narrates their journey to the zoo, where the animals serve as entertainment for workers like Amina, who is fascinated by the giraffes and spends her free time with the silent creatures (they remind her of "a nation asleep, of workers normalized into sleepwalkers"). Other narrators come and go, including a virologist in a secret government laboratory and a forester/sharpshooter. Throughout, Emil ruminates on the ills of the Czech "Communist moment," but he is also this inventive novel's weakness, as he remains ungraspable and too much inside his dreamy, free-associative head. Once the giraffes are discovered to be diseased, their fate is sealed, and the novel's narrators converge as the government's secret plan to shoot the animals unfolds. Ledgard's novel has bursts of sparkling intensity--the giraffe massacre, told from the sharpshooter's point of view, is particularly wrenching--but a stronger cast of narrators would have better bolstered Ledgard's magnificent material. (On sale Aug 21)
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Author Information

Bio of J. M. Ledgard

J. M. Ledgard was born on the Shetland Islands, Scotland, in 1968, and educated in England, Scotland, and America. He has been a foreign correspondent for the Economist since 1995. He divides his time between Europe and Africa.

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Additional Info

Imprint

Penguin (Non-Classics)

Filesize

1.48 MB

Number of Pages

304

eBook ISBN

9781429550543

Awards

• Commonwealth Writers Prize