The War of Lions

A novel blending ethnography and creative nonfiction about a contemporary witch-hunt at the center of the Mozambican liberation struggle. 

The War of Lions tells a story of magic, multi-species entanglement, and the unravelling of socialism in the form of a polyphonic ethnographic novel. The book follows a witch-hunt that erupted in 2002 to 2003 in the heartland of the Mozambican revolution as a consequence of a spate of lion attacks. It relates the search for witches and lions from a variety of perspectives, featuring a local intellectual and an anthropologist as characters in the unfolding drama. It aims to be the most vivid and detailed account of a contemporary witch-hunt ever provided, as well as an exploration of creative nonfiction as a mode of ethnographic writing. It is also a unique document of contemporary human-lion entanglement.