Cheeta escapes from Africa
Satire must be difficult. There can be no other explanation for its absence. James Lever does the Swiftian tradition and the Man Booker Prize longlist proud, however, with Me Cheeta. What's especially good about Lever's satire is its mix of deftness and absurdity. It begins when the chimpanzee, who would later go on to Hollywood stardom, has been trapped in the Liberian jungle and is brought to the West African coastal town of Kigoma, to await transport to America.
Where today's animal lovers would see "cages", Cheeta sees "shelters" that protect him from predators. "It was as if you'd taken the jungle and poured all the death out of it," he muses about his "liberation". 
When the captured creatures suddenly see "a shining wall standing upright in the river", which turns out to the SS Forest Lawn that will take them to New York, "...our chorus of voices formed one great ironic cheer of utter relief to be getting out of Africa. And that's my last memory of the place, pretty much, because soon afterwards I fell asleep and when I woke up it wasn't there anymore and never came back, for which deliverance I owe every human being on this planet a drink."
As the freighter makes its way across the "huge, swiftly flowing river" that is the Atlantic, the animals come to the conclusion that the ship is one huge "rehabilitation centre" and settle into their cruise: "It appeared the humans recognized how traumatized most of the animals were by their experiences in the jungle because we were all subjected to a lengthy period of complete rest and relaxation. This consisted of almost permanent darkness, coupled with a total lack of potentially distressing or dangerous social interaction, and strictly no exercise. Indeed, many of the animals required such intensive therapy that they adhered to this routine throughout the whole of their stay on the Forest Lawn."
The only interruptions come from the humans. "Here you go, boys," our kind rescuer would say, poking bits of fruit through the slats of our shelters. "Here you go, you poor little fucked-up lonely little hairy fucking bastards."
On Thursday, here, Cheeta arrives in Manhattan. It's 1933 and the chimp takes time out to ponder fear, economics and relative poverty.
