Zoo City cover art

Zoo City

The gripping novel from the author of Apple TV’s Shining Girls

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Zoo City

By: Lauren Beukes
Narrated by: Qondiswa James
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

WINNER OF THE 2011 ARTHUR C CLARKE AWARD

Lauren Beukes' tale of a young woman trapped in a brutal city but looking for a way out . . .

Zinzi has a Sloth on her back, a dirty 419 scam habit and a talent for finding lost things. But when a little old lady turns up dead and the cops confiscate her last paycheque, she's forced to take on her least favourite kind of job - missing persons.

Being hired by reclusive music producer Odi Huron to find a pop star should be her ticket out of Zoo City, the festering slum where the criminal underclass and their animal companions reside.

Instead it catapults Zinzi deeper into the maw of a city twisted by crime and magic, where she'll be forced to confront the dark secrets of former lives - including her own.


'A major, major talent' George R. R. Martin

'Beukes is very *very* good. It feels effortless, utterly accomplished' William Gibson

'Beukes brings a secret tenderness and humanity to her off-kilter portrait of the here and now' Guardian

'Exquisitely paced and impeccably controlled. An enormously satisfying novel' New York Times Book Review

© Lauren Beukes 2018 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

 Dystopian Fantasy Genre Fiction Science Fiction Urban Women's Fiction Fiction Crime Paranormal

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Critic reviews

[Beukes] brings a secret tenderness and humanity to her off-kilter portrait of the here and now
Lauren Beukes is very, *very* good. It feels effortless. Utterly accomplished (William Gibson)
A fabulous outing from an extremely promising writer ... [It] has so much fabulous wordplay, imaginative settings and scenarios, and such a dark and cynical heart that I was totally riveted by it (Cory Doctorow)
Beukes's energetic noir phantasmagoria ... crackles with original ideas ... Beukes skilfully employs all the twists of first-rate noir ... powerful indeed (Jeff Vandermeer, New York Times)
Beukes delivers a thrill ride that gleefully merges narrative styles and tropes, almost single-handedly pulling the "urban fantasy" subgenre back towards its groundbreaking roots
Energetic and imaginative ... Packed with colour, dark humour and thought-provoking ideas, Zoo City is an absolute must for anyone with a taste for the wilder edges of the genre
Original and unputdownable
An unpredictable and helluva awesome read
Lauren Beukes is Jeff Noon crossed with Raymond Chandler. I loved it, it's going to be huge (Paul Cornell)
I couldn't put this down. It's weird, thrilling, funny... filled with sleazy characters and lots of bad attitude (Mike Nicol)
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