<p>This article argues that humans are a literary species, best termed <i>Homo imaginatus</i>, shaped by a complex interplay of mimesis, violence, and imagination. Drawing on René Girard’s mimetic theory, it explores how unconscious imitation among pre-cultural hominins sparked mimetic crises—escalations of acquisitive rivalry and violence—which were resolved naturally through the scapegoat mechanism, which Girard posits as the origin of symbolic culture. While affirming the plausibility of Girard’s account of mimesis and conflict in human evolution, the author critiques his schematic view of cultural emergence, proposing instead that a neurological mutation enabling prefrontal synthesis (PFS), as theorized by Andrey Vyshedskiy, offers a more precise explanation. PFS is the capacity for deliberate imagination; it is the basis of recursive culture and language. But the evolutionary tale is not straightforward. Quite queerly, the mutation that makes PFS possible is first and foremost maladaptive: it renders us evolutionary or ontological exiles, no longer models of our natural environment, predisposing us to die before reaching sexual maturity. By synthesizing Girard’s mimetic insights with Vyshedskiy’s PFS, the article reframes humanity’s essence as, literally, literary. It is the result of a mutation that made it possible for us to engage in symbolic world-building, to construct stories in which we could live, but which, at the same time, made it impossible for us to live otherwise.</p>