Triangulum

This quirky, futuristic novel skirts the boundary of science fiction with its allusions to alien abductions and its presentation as a document that predicts the end of the world in 2050. The episodic narrative, delivered secretly to a university astronomy department, is organized as two interlocking manuscripts. In the first, set in 1999 (and featuring memories dating to 2002 obtained through regression therapy conducted in 2035), the unnamed narrator, a 14-year-old girl living with her father in the Ciskei state in postapartheid South Africa, ponders the mysterious disappearances of her mother and several fellow schoolgirls and how they may relate to “the machine,” a presumed alien presence that manifests as a triangular shape in her vision during seizures. In the second section, set in 2035, the same narrator is working in a government office on a secret project to influence human behavior when she is recruited by The Returners, a radical group hoping to return the land to a pre-corporatization paradise. Ntshanga (The Reactive) writes convincingly from the viewpoint of his narrator as she advances into adulthood. Her struggles to make sense of the strangeness and unpredictability of her world and experiences make this a stirring coming-of-age story. [em](May) [/em]