This pandemic book set in South Africa was published in 2016. It is prescient, in many ways, and I really warmed to it as it has so many similarities to the back-to-the-land post-apocalyptic type of society I put together in my own Audiopts series of books.
The story focusses on a father and son who steadily build a utopian society in an abandoned town in northern South Africa. The slow build up of population and structure in their community of Amanzi is delightfully light touch, and the characters are exceptionally well drawn. There are moments of tension, confusion, mystery, little stories within the story, relationship troubles, all in the setting of attempting to re-establishing the sort of infrastructure they had all known before the Fever came.
The ending takes an interesting turn, and whilst it didn’t quite do it for me, I can well imagine that many readers will like the conspiracy theory type conclusion in the plot resolution.
Well worth a read. Especially whilst Covid is still in our recent memories.