Mengele Zoo by Gert Nygårdshaug. An “Exemplary” Global Novel?

Abstract

This article examines Mengele Zoo by Gert Nygårdshaug as a compelling yet underrecognized case of the global novel. Although the novel exhibits many formal and thematic features associated with the genre—such as planetary environmental concerns, transnational settings, and linguistic complexity—it has been excluded from dominant definitions of global literature, which tend to prioritize English-language texts or those widely translated into English. Mengele Zoo's circulation has been largely peripheral, with notable success in Norway, France, and Colombia, but minimal presence in the Anglophone world. This absence raises questions about the ideological and market-driven criteria by which texts are included in global literary discourse. The novel's stark moral dichotomies, anti-corporate stance, and implicit endorsement of eco-terrorism may pose ideological challenges to its reception in English-speaking countries, particularly in a post-9/11 context. At the same time, its narrative offers a form of symbolic reparation for the Global North's environmental responsibility, but in a selective form, which may explain its appeal in certain European contexts. By analyzing Mengele Zoo's complex reception history and ideological framing, the article proposes the concept of the “defective” or “anomalous” global novel—a text that imagines the global and engages planetary issues but is hindered in its cultural circulation by linguistic, geopolitical, and ideological barriers. This case invites a reevaluation of how global literature is defined and canonized, highlighting the need to decenter Anglophone markets and consider alternative trajectories of global textual mobility.