The Ear, the Eye and the Arm

The Ear, the Eye and the Arm is a 1994 science fiction novel for young adults by Nancy Farmer. Set in 2194, it follows three children held by a ruthless Zimbabwean general who tries to escape their captors in the country’s dense and crime-ridden capital, Harare. The siblings, Rita, Kuda, and Tendai, use their smarts to navigate the city’s dangerous underbelly and discover for themselves the importance of human rights and freedoms. To help rescue them, the children’s parents recruit three mutant detectives with supernatural powers named Ear, Eye, and Arm. The novel belongs in the literary subgenre of Afrofuturism, which examines Africa in the historical context of the African Diaspora, and speculates about its possible futures given the acceleration of technological change.

The Ear, the Eye and the Arm begins at the onset of a campaign launched by Zimbabwe’s Chief of Security, General Matsika, to eradicate crime from the country. Before initiating the armed standoff, the general ensures that Rita, Kuda, and Tendai are safe in a reinforced estate. The children have no desire to be kept in isolation from the real world, and enlist the help of their family’s oral historian, the Mellower, to help them escape. They make their way to Harare’s largest market region, Mbare Musika, but do not make it far before being captured by followers of a slave owner called the She Elephant. They are taken to the She Elephant’s domain, the Dead Man’s Vlei, and are consigned to do hard labor in the plastic mines.

Meanwhile, General Matsika commissions the mutant detectives Ear, Eye, and Arm. They hail from a slum in Harare called the Cow’s Guts. Ear is gifted with superhuman hearing; Eye with superhuman vision. Arm has long limbs and slight mind-reading capabilities, especially the power to perceive people’s trustworthiness and emotional states. The children discover that they are going to be put up for sale. Their prospective buyers are the Masks, a large gang targeted by General Matsika in the anti-crime campaign, who so far have escaped his wrath. The children escape the She Elephant before they are sold. They travel to a small, independent state in Zimbabwe called Resthaven, where there is a national mandate on preserving African tradition. The children are discovered and banished.



The next place the children find refuge is in Borrowdale, a neighborhood first created by English colonists. There, they meet Mrs. Horsepool-Worthingham, the Mellower’s mother. She houses them and helps take care of them when they are afflicted with chickenpox. However, Tendai becomes suspicious of Mrs. Horsepool-Worthingham, and figures out that they are being held until she can give them to the gang and collect the ransom money. Just before they confront her, the She Elephant recaptures them and gives them to the Masks. The Masks take them to the Gondwannan embassy building known as the Mile-High Macllwaine, which functions as their secret base.

The Masks orchestrate a sacrificial ceremony in which they plan to kill Tendai to please the gods and ensure their preservation in the anti-crime campaign. Just when all hope seems lost, Arm is visited by a holy African spirit called the mhondoro, who possesses his body in order to guide them to the children’s location. Using Arm’s body, the mhondoro fights the Big-Head Mask, the gang’s most fearsome warrior. The Big-Head Mask momentarily paralyzes Arm, but the mhondoro heals him. General Matsika and his wife arrive just as the She Elephant experiences a spiritual revelation and realizes she need not be a villain to preserve her vision of Africa. She destroys the Mask before he can wreak further havoc. With the Masks destroyed, all of the wealth they looted from the people of Zimbabwe is spread around to Zimbabwe’s poor. General Matsika apologizes to his children for isolating them from the world, resolving to allow them their freedom. The Ear, the Eye and the Arm transcends classic narratives about crime wars, advancing, instead, a fantastical allegory for African self-liberation.