Ninevah

Henrietta Rose-Innes

Katya is a pest controller in Cape Town. Some of the pests she has to control are deadly and dangerous. But none more so than her father. He’s a far worse problem than the insect infestation in Nineveh, a new luxury estate. Henrietta Rose-Innes comes from a new generation of South African writers and this novel searches deep into the racist psyche. It is not a comfortable book - but definitely one to read.

Extract

It is a kind of trap door above her. A plank half conceals the gap, but a bar of weak light shows through. She puts her hand up tentatively and pushes at the damp wood. And the weight of the building pushes back. She has the distinct feeling of being pressed back down into the mud, of the space squeezing smaller, the dark cave pinching shut ....
Panicked she twists round in the dark on her belly and struggles back the way she came - crawling, slithering - until she's passed under the boardwalk and climbed out of the trench and there's sky above her again.

Parallels