Disaster management in a dystopian novel: A case study of JJ Amaworo Wilson’s Damnificados

Abstract

Several years ago, the large number of people living illegally in the so-called Tower of David, an abandoned high-rise building in the Venezuelan capital of Caracas, caught the attention of the world’s media. Based on this unlikely source of inspiration, a similar such skyscraper forms the centrepiece to Damnificados, a dystopian novel by JJ Amaworo Wilson, which was first published in 2016. Set in a nameless country, this innovative and engaging novel frequently turns to magic realism in its depiction of the ‘damnificados’, a motley crew of squatters who are under constant threat from external perils, both natural and man-made. Under the guidance of the novel’s hero, Nacho, strategies to manage these threats are developed and implemented, with significant implications for the building’s inhabitants and their welfare. Accordingly, this exploratory contribution aims to identify and apply a relevant disaster management framework to the first of the many calamities portrayed in the novel, which is where the building and the city surrounding it are inundated by a catastrophic flood. In evaluating the inhabitants’ response through the lens of the framework, this study thereby provides an interdisciplinary overview of how disaster management strategies can be represented in literary texts.