Glory

Description

*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 BOOKER PRIZE*

From the award-winning author of the Booker Prize finalist We Need New Names, an anthropomorphic blockbuster of a novel that chronicles the fall of an oppressive regime, and the chaotic, kinetic potential for real liberation that rises in its wake.

Glory centres around the unexpected fall of Old Horse, a long-serving, tyrannical leader of the fictional country of Jidada, and the drama that follows for a rumbustious nation of animals on the precarious path to freedom. Inspired by the unexpected fall by coup, in November 2017, of Robert Mugabe—Zimbabwe’s president of nearly four decades—Bulawayo’s bold, vividly imagined novel shows a country imploding, narrated by a chorus of animal voices who unveil the ruthlessness and cold strategy required to uphold the illusion of absolute power, and the imagination and bullet-proof fortitude to overthrow it completely.

As with her debut novel We Need New Names, Bulawayo’s fierce voice and lucid imagery immerses us in the daily life of a traumatized nation, revealing the dazzling life force and irrepressible wit that lies barely concealed beneath the surface of seemingly bleak circumstances. At the centre of this tumult is Destiny, who has returned to Jidada from exile to bear witness to revolution and brings into focus the unofficial history and the potential legacy of the remarkable women who have quietly pulled the strings in this country. The animal kingdom—its connection to our primal responses and resonance in the mythology, folktales, and fairytales that define cultures the world over—unmasks the surreality of contemporary global politics to help us understand our world more clearly, even as Bulwayo plucks us right out of it.

Glory is a blockbuster, an exhilarating ride, and crystalizes a turning point in history with the texture and nuance that only the greatest of fiction can.*SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 BOOKER PRIZE*

Praise for Glory:

“Few writers possess a literary voice as inimitable as Bulawayo’s…[The] dazzling voices of this novel will draw you deep into its ambitious and mystifying heart.”
—Vulture

“A crackling political satire.”
—The New York Times

“Genius.”
—Jason Reynolds, New York Times bestselling author of Look Both Ways

“[One of the] most anticipated books of 2022.” 
—Oprah Daily

“Throughout, Bulawayo keenly displays the perspectives of political players and the civilians who bear the brunt of their violence. With satire that feels necessary and urgent, Bulawayo brings clarity to a murky political morass.”
—Publishers Weekly

“[L]yrical . . . [Bulawayo] writes sinuous prose rich with repetition and intensifiers that conjure a mood of an epic folktale.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“Glory is like nothing we’ve read before. It’s a strange, creative, experimental book that will take the reading world by storm, a satire grounded in hope.”
—Book Riot

“A surreal venture that lays the struggles of social upheaval bare.”
—Leanne Butkovic, Thrillist

“Inspired by the fall of Robert Mugabe, [Glory] promises an incisive parable for our times.”
—Tom Beer, Kirkus Reviews

“Bulawayo’s writing resonates with wit, mythology, and metaphor that extends far beyond Zimbabwe.”
—Alta Journal

“With ingenuity and skill, Bulawayo masterfully controls her story, switching among plotlines, voices and themes, and between past and present, with history never forgotten. . . . On Bulawayo’s animal farm, citizens are powerful, and stories will raise the dead.”
—Datebook

“Glory is set in a fictional African nation that’s occupied exclusively by animals. Those animals’ voices are used to explore and expose social upheaval and political dictatorship in an unexpected way. [A] captivating examination of themes such as toxic masculinity, hero worship, and performative change.”
—TIME Magazine

“Bulawayo is an innovative stylist—she collapses genres, subverts expectations and cuts to the marrow of the continent’s politics—and is a vital voice in an emerging generation of post-colonial African writers; her avant-garde experiments illuminate the absurdity and anguish of the here and now.”
—Star Tribune

“[Glory is a] satire to rival Animal Farm, dark escapades of youth, and more new fiction.”
—Vanity Fair

“Glory is its own vivid world, drawn from its own folklore. . . . Bulawayo is really out-Orwelling Orwell. This is a satire with sharper teeth, angrier, and also very, very funny. Narrating from the perspective of a chorus of unseen Jidadans, Bulawayo displays a mordant wit with a delightful, off-kilter edge. . . . She has a gift for coming up with wildly specific and marvelously irreverent turns of phrase. . . Bulawayo’s manifoldly clever new novel. . . . is a brilliant, 400-page postcolonial fable charting the downfall of one tyrant—whose counterpart here is an elderly horse—and the rise of a new one.”
—The New York Times
 
“Among her new book’s many strengths is Bulawayo’s portrayal of the Jidadans’ experience as at once distinct and universal. . . . [P]rodigious.”
—The Washington Post

“Set in the fictionalized country of Jidada, Glory is a brash and boisterous take on Zimbabwe’s political life. . . . In the end, the book offers a somewhat rose-colored vision of the future.”
—Los Angeles Times

“Throughout, Bulawayo’s narrative voices are exquisite in their modulation. . . . She brings in humor and joy, too, despite the novel’s potently serious subject matters, reflecting the reality of human nature. . . . Glory goes beyond its immediate inspiration in how, despite the Zimbabwean particulars, it expresses a people’s frustration, terror, resilience, uprising, and hope in a way that can be applied to a multitude of nations and political realities around the globe. Hope is not an easy thing . . . but, like Glory, it is indeed glorious in its power.”
—NPR

“[A] powerful celebration of the strength of a united citizenry, of a moment when those living under tyranny decide that they have had enough. . . . Extraordinary . . . electrifying.”
—The Guardian

“NoViolet Bulawayo’s Glory is satire with plenty of teeth.”
—Tampa Bay Times

“[A] wittily satirical novel about political corruption.”
—The Times (UK)

“Bulawayo’s long-awaited second novel is a spellbinding allegory. . . . [It] is also a fresh and modern take on our relationship to the virtual world and to the novel form itself. . . . Bulawayo doesn’t hold back in speaking truth to power. She writes urgently and courageously, holding up a mirror both to contemporary Zimbabwe and the world at large. . . . [F]earless and innovative.”
—The Guardian

“The patois—tholukuthi, roughly translated as ‘hey’—and rhythmic cadence of repeated phrases merge with warmth, insight, and wry humour to create a world that engulfs and enthralls.”
—The Spectator

“This second novel from NoViolet Bulawayo isn’t just better than her impressive, Booker-shortlisted debut, it’s also radically different. . . . [A] part of the story reduced me to tears. Yet it is a funny book. . . . Bulawayo invites you to suspend disbelief in order that you believe.”
—The Scotsman

“At once an allegory of Zimbabwe’s history and a deeply poignant reading of the fractious moment we are all living through, Glory looks at how leaders command and forfeit power, as well as at the lives of ordinary people caught in the roiling waters of politics.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books
 
“The novel is dark and vivacious. . . . Written in a mixture of narrative voices (third person and ‘we’) and in a blend of the present and past tenses, Bulawayo cleverly uses horses, donkeys, dogs, cats and pigs to tell a story of the past and present in an absorbing, stirring manner. . . . Bulawayo’s prose is beautiful and evocative. Her writing is mesmerizing and dazzling and leaves a reader with a Hobson’s choice of just following and following and following and trailing and trailing until the alluring last lines.”
—The Nation

“[A] fierce but comedic allegory.”
—BBC

“[A] vigorous satire of political turmoil.”
—The Guardian

PRAISE FOR NOVIOLET BULAWAYO

“A deeply felt and fiercely written debut novel . . . The voice Ms. Bulawayo has fashioned for [Darling] is utterly distinctive – by turns unsparing and lyrical, unsentimental and poetic, spiky and meditative.”
—Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“A gifted writer.”
—New York Times Book Review
 
“NoViolet Bulawayo does not shrink away from anything… [She] writes with poignant clarity and hard-hitting imagery.”
—New York Daily News

“The Booker Prize–shortlisted author of We Need New Names returns with a novel inspired by the fall of Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe in 2017. Described as an ‘anthropomorphic allegory’ in the tradition of Animal Farm, Bulawayo’s tale of dictatorship and oppression explores the exaltation and downfall of a would-be savior.”
—Oprah Daily

“[Bulawayo’s] prose is warm and clear and unfussy…Her hard, funny first novel is a triumph.”
—Entertainment Weekly
 
“Her gift as a visual storyteller should propel her to a bright future.”
—USA Today
 
“Bulawayo’s meditations on displacement and belonging have already garnered widespread critical praise and comparisons to the likes of Zadie Smith and J. M. Coetzee… Bulawayo mixes imagination and reality, combining an intuitive attention to detail with startling, visceral imagery… This book is a provocative, haunting debut from an author to watch.”
—Elle

“Glory . . . has its own lexicon and is written in a speech-like rhythm that adds to the sense of fable. It is a fairy tale, a work of satire—and a warning.”
—The New Statesman

“The reverence with which Bulawayo introduces her novel is a prelude to the magnificence of Glory. . . . Glory reads like one long sigh, in the best way possible; it is cohesive and dynamic at once, de­manding attention and placing Jidada front and center. It is heartbreaking to see hope dwindle and ignite so quickly, but it is never extinguished.”
—Locus Magazine

“Bulawayo is offering the world a lesson about the corruptions of power, just as Orwell did. Glory shocks and appalls, relentlessly attacking the seat of power. . . . [L]augh-out-loud hilarious.”
—Los Angeles Review of Books

“[Noviolet] writes in exuberant, looping sentences and wittily experiments with form, incorporating elements of social media. It makes for an urgent and engaging meditation on the farce of totalitarianism and the struggle of those who live under it to forge something better.”
—iNews (UK)NOVIOLET BULAWAYO is the author of We Need New Names which has been recognized with the LA Times Book Prize Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Etisalat Prize for Literature, the Barnes and Noble Discover Award (second place), and the National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” Fiction Selection. We Need New Names was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize and The Guardian First Book Award, and selected to the New York Times Notable Books of 2013 list, the Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers list, and others. NoViolet’s story “Hitting Budapest” won the 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing. NoViolet earned her MFA at Cornell University where she was a recipient of the Truman Capote Fellowship. She was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, where she now teaches as a Jones Lecturer in Fiction. NoViolet grew up in Zimbabwe.US