Memoir of a Hyena

Synopsis

Memoir of a Hyena is a strange, darkly comic, and unexpectedly moving novel that imagines the life of a spotted hyena in Tanzania. Through the voice of its animal narrator, Sean Kennerly creates an unconventional portrait of family, hierarchy, survival, and the complicated search for belonging.

Growing up within a hyena clan, the narrator occupies an uncertain place within a rigid social order dominated by powerful females. His relationships with his family, particularly his sister, shape his understanding of loyalty, rivalry, status, and exile. As he moves through the Tanzanian landscape, he encounters the dangers and freedoms of life beyond the clan while observing the intricate social structures that govern hyena society.

Kennerly uses the animal perspective to explore recognizably human questions without turning the hyena world into a simple allegory. The novel is attentive to the realities of animal behaviour, the harshness of the natural world, and the strange intelligence of a creature so often misunderstood. Its narrator is at once an outsider, an observer, and a participant in a society whose rules are as complex as those of the human world.

Part adventure, part family saga, and part philosophical meditation, Memoir of a Hyena offers an original perspective on identity, power, kinship, and survival. It is an unusual work of literary fiction that asks what it might mean to understand the world from a radically different point of view.

About the Author

Sean Kennerly is an American writer and the author of Memoir of a Hyena. His work explores the boundaries between human and animal experience, combining literary fiction with an interest in the natural world and the ways stories can reshape our understanding of other species.

Publisher

Some People Press

Publication Date

July 2026

Format

Paperback

Pages

TBD

Subjects

Literary Fiction; Animal Fiction; African Literature; Tanzania; Wildlife; Family; Survival; Nature; Power; Social Hierarchy; Satire; Existential Fiction

ISBN

9798994197738