GREEN LION

This seductive new novel is set in an off-kilter, near-future Cape Town where it hauntingly explores the boundaries between the city and the wild.

Green lion is an old alchemical term for a strong acid used in the production of gold and the raising of the dead, and ideas of what is rare, precious and possibly lost for ever lie at the novel's core. Con is adrift, unemployed and emotionally numb, when his life is disrupted by the news that an old school friend has been mauled by a rare lion at the breeding park where he worked. Mark is now in a coma and Con agrees to Mark's mother's request to collect her son's possessions for her. And so he is drawn into a fascinating but disturbing new world.

The attacking lion has been shot and the remaining lioness, a disturbed animal rescued from abuse in a safari park, needs a keeper. The project is losing panicked staff and Con – jolted out of his lethargy by the animal's powerful presence, and memories of his charismatic friend – steps into the role. There are others who share his obsession with the lioness, the only remaining Cape black-maned lion known to exist. These include Mark's mother, the widow of a big-game hunter; government officials and investors, concerned about the loss of their flagship project; locals, disturbed by the roars of lions on Table Mountain; and a shadowy group of new-agers who have adopted the “resurrected” lion as their totem.

When Con is seduced by one of the cultists, the lioness escapes. It roams the streets of Cape Town, charming or terrifying those who encounter it, and in his quest to track down the quasi-mythic beast, Con must confront dark memories of a childhood tragedy, and his own deepest fears of power and loss. Brilliantly, beautifully written, GREEN LION is a novel about loss and survival, about what we choose to protect and call precious, and how the last lion of its kind unleashes unexpected forces in a damaged man's life.

Henrietta is the author of four novels and one book of short stories. She was winner of the Caine Prize for African Writing 2008 (for which she was shortlisted in 2007), the PEN Short Story Prize 2007, and awarded the Runner-Up prize for her short story 'Sanctuary' at the BBC International Short Story Awards 2012. Her novel, NINEVEH, was shortlisted for The Sunday Times Fiction Prize (South Africa), the M-Net Prize 2012 and won the Francois Sommer Literary Prize.