Zoo City

Benoît is a Congolese refugee and Zinzi’s boyfriend. He left his wife and family behind after they were all attacked by the FLDR on the way to her father’s funeral. He fought back and was set on fire, giving him visible scar tissue on his throat and chest. Because he killed two of his attackers, he also received an animal familiar, a Mongoose, and his shavi, which is dampening other people’s shavi.

For years, Benoît searched for his family while living in Zoo City and filling in as a security guard. At the novel’s outset, he receives word that his family is alive and plans to leave immediately. He struggles to part from Zinzi, although he becomes angry when he discovers her email scam. When Zinzi asks for his help in searching for Song and S’bu, he agrees, and he is badly injured in a struggle with Odi Huron’s Crocodile.

Music producer Odi Huron has “fleshy lips” with a large nose that is “slightly askew” (90). Technically short for “Odysseus,” his nickname also references his odiousness. Odi has had a long career checkered by scandal: Two of his employees were murdered at a nightclub, and one of his musicians killed herself. Just as notable as his appearance is something only Zinzi can see: a squirming, severed black mass around his head, something to which he has tried and failed to sever his attachment. She realizes later that this attachment is to his Crocodile; Odi is animalled.

At the novel’s outset, Odi’s career is on the rise. He has opened a new bar, Counter Rev, and his group iJusi is climbing the charts. When one half of iJusi, Songweza, goes missing, he asks his criminal partners, Mark and Amira, to bring Zinzi to his compound. He pretends to hire Zinzi to find Song and claims he is concerned for her health. He has planned all along, however, to use her and her brother, S’bu, as tools in a magical ritual that will free him from his Crocodile. After the ritual is completed, the Crocodile turns on Odi and kills him. Police discover 20 bodies at his compound.

S’bu and Song are twins who make up the pop duo iJusi, which is managed by Odi Huron. After becoming famous by appearing on Starmakerz—and following a life of tragedy that included the deaths of their parents—the twins signed with Odi.

S’bu is a handsome 15-year-old with “big heartbreaker eyes, an upturned button nose, and dimples” (104). Despite his fame, he remains sweet. He believes that his sister Song is the talented one. Along with his friends, Arno and Des, he has dreams of leaving iJusi. He is a typical teenage boy who spends his free time playing video games and smoking weed, for which Odi sends him to rehab at Haven.

Song is a teenage pop star with a bright, mod-rock style. The more independent of the iJusi teens, she enjoys pursuing bouncers at clubs, and even in rehab, she is known for her wild behavior. In rehab, she strikes up a relationship with another patient, Jabu. When he disappears, she believes that he is cheating on her. Song enlists a bouncer’s (Ronaldo’s) help in getting out of Odi’s grasp. She buys an apartment where she can hide out, but it is only a few weeks until Amira and Mark find her.

Amira sets fire to the home where the twins live, killing S’bu’s friend Arno and two street kids who resemble the twins. She and Odi give S’bu and Song a dissociative drug and force S’bu to kill Song. When he realizes what he has done, he is distraught. After attaching Odi’s Crocodile to S’bu, Amira kills him. 

Zinzi’s debt collector and the handler for her phishing emails, Vuyo is muscular and handsome, with “broad cheekbones, a neat goatee, and an easy smile” (42). He dresses to impresses, but his neat appearance belies his profession as crook and scammer, as well as his ability to enact violence. He finds every excuse to add more money to Zinzi’s debt and to coopt her into his fleecing schemes, but he likes her and often helps her in certain ways.

Mark and Amira run a business called Maltese and Marabou Procurements. Amira is a thin, androgynous woman with a “chemotherapy haircut.” Her animal familiar is a Marabou stork, and her shavi is finding murder scenes. She tells Zinzi that she was a victim of human trafficking, brought to South Africa in a shipping container, but Zinzi suspects she was the one doing the trafficking.

The other half of Maltese and Marabou Procurements, Mark is a dapper man who dyes his familiar, a Maltese poodle, to match his accessories. His shavi is amplifying others’ shavi. With Amira’s help, he murders several mashavi in preparation for Odi’s separation ritual. After Odi is eaten by his Crocodile, Mark and Amira flee the scene.