Where The Crawdads Sing author Delia Owens has a racist past that includes murder.

Yep, you read that correctly. The Where The Crawdads Sing author is wanted in connection with a 1995 murder in Zambia, and the killing has undeniable similarities to the one that features in her best selling book.

But before we get into that, let’s get into her racist past, and that of her family. Because they have a long history of showing Black people no respect - something that is crystal clear in the way she’s written the Black characters in her bestselling book, which is now a film.

So, backstory. Delia Owens is a zoologist and conservationist, who has a PhD in animal behaviour. Her husband, Mark Owens is also a zoologist, as well as a biologist. Together they spent 23 years living in various countries in Africa so they could conduct research studies on animals there. They began their time in Africa in Botswana, but criticism of the government and it’s approach to conservation led to the Botswanan government kicking them out of their country. (Side note: Botswana has one of the highest conservation land ratios in Africa, with around 25% of the land set aside for national parks and reserves. They also run a system of low numbers high cost safari tourism, which has been incredibly successful at limiting the impact of tourism on their environment. And they did that without the saving grace of two Americans - interesting.)

After being kicked out of Botswana, in 1986 the pair moved themselves and their work to Zambia. And here is where a lot of the documentation of their disdain towards African people comes from. Disdain so strong that they became known for the way they resented African people and their presence amid the animals they were there to observe, and how they saw them as less than the animals. Local conservationist Mark Harvey spoke to journalist Jeffrey Goldberg in 2010 and said of the Owenses: Their whole attitude was ‘Nice continent. Pity about the Africans.’

And this Animals first, Africans ideally never attitude is what led to the 1995 murder that was filmed by ABC news programme Turning Point and broadcast in 1996. Delia and Mark were vehemently against poaching - fair enough, we can probably almost all agree poaching is barbaric. Along with Mark’s son Christopher, they put together a group of game scouts made out of local people. Their purpose was to search for poachers and keep them away from the animals. All sounds well and good.

Until you find out that this group was outside of the scope of the Zambian Government, and was put together by buying their loyalty through the provision of weapons, boots, and money. Essentially, without any go ahead from the Government, two Americans had decided to illegally militarise around 2,400 square miles of Zambian national park. Sources in Zambia told Jeffrey Goldberg on multiple visits that the “training” for game scouts included Christopher Owens beating the locals as “discipline.” Multiple sources also told him this cruel treatment wasn’t limited to the scouts - suspected poachers were allegedly tied to stakes and left in the burning hot sun. They of course deny this. However a scout from the time, Henry Kampamba, said, “Mark Owens told us that anyone with meat or a weapon should have a beating.”

Before the 1995 murder, Mark Owens was already on record bragging about previous killings of suspected poachers. And the way he described it in a fax sent to professional hunter P. J. Fouche - who managed a government-licensed hunting concession adjacent to North Luangwa where the Owenses were based - sounded a lot like they were hunting the humans. It reads:

To date I have flown eight airborne antipoaching operations over your area, including four in which I inserted scouts on ambush. Two poachers have been killed and one wounded that I know of thus far, and we are just getting warmed up. Anything you can do to help keep our anti-poaching efforts alive in your area will, I guarantee, pay big dividends for your safari business, and very soon. On that note, would it be possible for you to bring back as much ammo as you can: 12 gauge 00B, 30.06, 300, 7.62 short (AK), and some cracker shells (for pest control)?

In 1995, on one of these ambushes, Mark and Christopher Owens were accompanied by a film crew from ABC. Footage that would later be broadcast showed the execution style murder of an alleged poacher, who whilst lying collapsed on the ground after having already been shot, was fatally shot again. The victim is not identified in the documentary, and neither is the identity of whoever fired the fatal shots off-camera. It was claimed later - after the Owens fled from Zambia - it was a game scout. However Chris Everson who filmed the murder told Jeffrey Goldberg that it was not a Zambian game scout, but Christopher Owens, who fired the fatal shots.

There is no statute of limitations on murder in Zambia, and Zambian authorities remain interested in bringing charges for the 1995 televised killing. The country’s director of public prosecutions, Lillian Shawa-Siyuni, confirmed that Mark, Delia and Christopher Owens are all still wanted for questioning related to the killing of the alleged poacher, as well as other possible criminal activities in North Luangwa. Mark and Christopher are wanted for direct involvement, and Delia Owens is wanted as a possible witness, co-conspirator, and accessory to felony crimes.

So whilst her husband and stepson were off beating, torturing and murdering the local people, what was Delia doing? Well, she was busy writing about the “dark continent”, the “strange place”, and infantilising the people who lived there. And this is really where Delia Owens lack of respect for African people shines. First of all, her author website speaks of Africa as if Delia entered and survived some mystical land, hidden from civilisation.

Delia Owens lived in some of the most remote areas of Africa for twenty-three years while she conducted scientific research on lions, elephants and others. Based on these expeditions and adventures, she co-authored three internationally bestselling nonfiction books about her life as a wildlife scientist.

Sounds a bit Indiana Jones, no? Let’s talk about those bestselling books, and specifically the way she speaks of African people as though they were awestruck by her and her husband and their advanced technology from the West. Specifically lets talk about the way she lies in order to push a narrative that combines white saviourism and western supremacy. In a stand out moment in the book The Eye of The Elephant, Delia speaks of Sunday Justice, a local man who had worked for the Owenses as a cook. She claims he was in awe of their plane, claiming he said:

I myself always wanted to talk to someone who has flown up in the sky with a plane. I myself always wanted to know, Madam, if you fly at night, do you go close to the stars?

When Jeffrey Goldberg met Sunday Justice and told him about this, he laughed. Not only had he been on planes as a child, he had for a while also served in the Zambian Air Force. Jeffrey also makes a point of saying that Sunday spoke to him like an adult would - not in the childlike way Delia Owens quotes him as. Delia Owens had intentionally infantilised him, her racist condescension serving only to paint a picture of Africa and Africans that places both as far removed from advancing civilisation. And positioning her as this shining light bringing something aweinspiring to these people.

In the book Secrets Of The Savanna, the Owenses took this disdain for African people even further, issuing a call for human population control in Africa, claiming that “despite the ravages of Aids and a plethora of other diseases, Africa’s populations continue to outstrip the carry capacity of the continental resource base.” And until Mr Goldberg - who seems to be the only man consistently holding these people in check - called it out in The New Yorker, their website referred to Africa as the “Dark Continent.”

And this way of describing Black people isn’t limited to her non-fiction work. It’s also evident in Where The Crawdads Sing. And I don’t know why I still allow myself to be surprised when work like this becomes popular, but I truly am stunned that a book that depicts the Black characters as barely able to string together an intelligible sentence became the success that it did. It uses horrible language, an unnecessarily large number of slurs, age old stereotypes that should be long put to bed, and the story is uncannily similar to the murder her family ran from. The character of Mabel couldn’t be more of the Mammy stereotype if Delia had tried. Jumpin’, the kindly father figure is pretty much just the Magical Negro stereotype.

This novel is completely unconcerned by historical accuracy. It is set in the 1950s, in the Deep South of the United States, and Owens tries to convince us, the reader, that Kya - a white girl - is treated the same by her town as the Black inhabitants. The only time their experiences are even mentioned are to tie back to Kya and her hardships. It comes across in much the same way the language used to describe the war in Ukraine did. That its absolutely shocking that white people would ever be treated the way Black and brown people are. The reality of course in 1950s Deep South USA was that Black people were segregated, legally and systemically oppressed, regularly faced violence against person and property, and lynchings were a normal part of life. Delia furthers her total ignorance to the reality of life at that time for Black people by writing that Jumpin’ would go to the police as a Black man and report the rape of a white woman. This is a time period that saw 14 year old Emmett Till abducted, tortured and lynched for offending a white woman. Despite ignoring all of that, Delia does commit to referring to the Black characters as coloured, because that outdated language is clearly crucial for historical accuracy.

She also writes the Black characters speaking in an almost unintelligible fashion - this despite the fact they live in the exact same town as the white characters who are well spoken. When Kya meets Jumpin’ after being assaulted, Jumpin’ says ““Was it Mr. Chase done this to ya?” he asks. “Ya know ya can tell me. In fact, we gwine stand right here tills ya tell me.” and when Kya begs Jumpin’ not to report the assault to the sheriff - which, as mentioned above, is an obscence suggestion - he responds that “sump’m gotta be done. He cain’t go an’ do a thing like that, and then just go on boatin’ ’round in that fancy boat a’ his.”

The book alone highlights the lack of knowledge, care or respect for Black people that Delia Owens has. And to then hear people like Reese Witherspoon amplifying it with her book club and going on to produce the film, or Taylor Swift calling it ethereal and mesmerizing and making music for the film just reinforces how far we have to go in the work for true equity. Because even if we give them and their PR teams the benefit of the doubt and assume they didn’t take the 5 minutes it takes to find the information about Delia Owens and her racist past - the book itself is full of racist condescenion and stereotypes. And these are two women who have positioned themselves quite loudly as feminists, but this just shows that their feminism is explicitly white feminism, it is not intersectional and it doesn’t amplify the voices of the oppressed. In fact they have very loudly amplified the voice of an oppressor.

So, it’s up to you but maybe we could consider skipping that trip to see the film? Thor: Love and Thunder is out right now and that is a lot of fun, see that instead.