The novel “Hearts, Hands and Voices”, published in the USA as “The Broken Land”, by Ian McDonald was published for the first time in 1992.
Mathembe Fileli lives with her family in the village of Chepsenyt, where there’s peace despite the religious and political differences between its inhabitants. But when they offer refuge to some rebels who are fighting against the Empire Across the River, they can’t keep it secret and imperial troops arrive and set fire to the entire village, forcing the inhabitants to flee.
Only Mathembe’s grandfather’s head remains, and the girl takes it away with her, because it’s still alive, on her journey in search of a new home and the rest of her family, from which she got separated. In a decaying empire, such a journey is dangerous because grandfather and granddaughter risk having problems with both the authorities and the rebels.
Ian McDonald grew up in Belfast with a Scottish father and an Irish mother, so he knew religious and political conflicts from childhood in one of the most dramatic periods in Northern Ireland. That profoundly influenced his vision of those conflicts, and also of colonialism since he came to see his land as a post-colonial society. “Hearts, Hands and Voices” is set in the distant future in a place with characteristics more similar to Africa, but it’s no coincidence that in one of the first novels of this author those themes related to Northern Ireland are central.
As Ian McDonald witnessed the conflict in Northern Ireland known as “The Troubles”, Mathembe Fileli finds himself witnessing religious and political conflicts in an empire that seems far from solid. Actually, the information that is provided on the people who run that empire is limited because the story is told from the point of view of an ordinary person.
In that future, advanced biotechnologies are used that allow to generate organisms with precise characteristics through genetic engineering, but also organic structures of other kinds, including buildings. However, human beings remained substantially the same with the same emotions and, unfortunately, the same tendency towards tribalism which leads to divisions with subsequent conflicts.
The incipit of “Hearts, Hands and Voices” illustrates the use of biotechnology in the family of Mathembe Fileli, with her grandfather whose head got attached to a tree after his death, allowing him to continue in some way to live, her father who he grew trux, animals created through genetic engineering to be used as a sort of organic trucks, and her mother who used genetic engineering in various ways useful for their village.
There are references to biotechnologies throughout the novel, and they contribute to forming the science fiction setting, but no details of how they work are provided. Ian McDonald is interested in these elements as a tool to be used to develop the story’s plot and themes. The author’s choice is due to the fact that this is not a hard science fiction novel, on the contrary at times it seems almost a fairy tale despite the dramatic events. This impression is also due to his very elegant style, with parts that are phrased in such a way that they sound almost like a melody.
“Hearts, Hands and Voices” is a complex novel for the difficult themes at the center of a plot that’s rather fragmented with many events that intertwine in a non-linear way. The characters come and go and even Mathembe gave me several times the impression of being a witness to those events, sometimes indirectly listening to someone else’s stories, rather than the protagonist.
Overall, “Hearts, Hands and Voices” is a novel that develops very important themes with a pace generally slow. Ian McDonald offers reasons for hope for that future, but it’s definitely a future born in pain. For these reasons, I recommend it especially to readers interested in the novel’s themes to reflect on them, also rereading it to better understand its many details.
