“They Are Increasing”

Abstract The dominant variant of pandemic literature is unquestionably viral. Relative to other pathogen plots, bacteria have been overshadowed. This elision of bacterial pandemic fiction mirrors the underappreciated hazard of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), often called the “invisible” or “silent” pandemic. This article historicizes the microgenre of bacteriological and AMR pandemic fiction. Documenting the general trends and tropes of the genre vis-à-vis apocalypse, it focuses on one short story, “Ayanda” (2015), a deceptively mundane account of a South African protagonist’s navigation of a resistant urinary tract infection in a not-so-distant future. Considering the specific aesthetic, formal, and medical themes of “Ayanda” draws into relief the consequences of this lack of imaginative investment in AMR. Attendance to the “increasing” genre of AMR fiction, however, provides a generative means to contextualize the long arc of microbial history and resistance, the fragile antimicrobial infrastructure that enmeshes them, and lives affected differentially by these sets of relations.