4 Great Examples of Non-Human Narrators in Fiction

Find the humanity in the most non-human protagonists.

A couple years ago, I had the idea to write a novel from the perspective of a sentient, sarcastic parasite living in the gut of a corrupt public health inspector. I figured a non-human narrator would have some interesting things to say about humanity. The final product, “Absolute Unit,” is a combination of body horror and crime fiction; the parasite gets tired of living on scraps and decides to use its budding telekinetic powers to conquer the world.

While I was working on “Absolute Unit,” I watched a lot of parasite-themed horror movies (“The Thing,” obviously, but also a lot of stuff by David Cronenberg and James Gunn) and read a lot of books told from the perspective of insects, rabbits, robots, and more. I discovered a few things that might aid your own process if you decide to embrace a non-human narrator (especially in an apocalyptic setting). Here are the books whose ideas and lessons stuck with me.

Jeff Vandermeer, “Dead Astronauts”

Jeff Vandermeer has made a career out of shifting narrative perspective away from the human. While some critics have deemed him an “apocalyptic” writer, it might be fairer to say he’s more hopeful than that — his works often focus on…