Mzumi
by Greg Knepp
Category: Fiction

MZUMI is set in mid-1990’s East Africa amid drought, famine and civil war. At the story’s center is the fossilized skeleton of a mid-Pliocene primate, considered by its discoverers to be the common ancestor of all living human beings and anthropoid apes—the missing link, if you will. The scientists, however, face great difficulty in getting the fossil and themselves safely out of the rapidly deteriorating nation. Into this arena comes a charismatic young televangelist intent on bringing food, medical help and spiritual salvation to the “heathen hordes of Africa”. But a local tribal strong-man has other plans for the missionary, as well as for the valuable fossil. The evangelist, for his part, would like to see the “old bones of a long dead demon” destroyed.