Two imaginaries often inspire fictions of the future : the ecological catas trophe and the development of (bio)technologies. Epidemic reality arises precisely at the crossroads of these two dimensions, allowing the exploration of a future that is sometimes utopian and sometimes dystopian. The twenty-first century novels examined in this article focus on four of these possible African futures : White Devils (2004) by the British author Paul McAuley, Moxyland (2008) by South African SF-writer Lauren Beukes, Fever (2016) by her compatriot Deon Meyer and The Old Drift (2019) by the Zambian Namwali Serpell.