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Glory
From the award-winning author of the Booker-prize finalist We Need New Names, a 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 centers around the unexpected fall of Old Horse, a long-serving leader of a fictional country, and the drama that follows for a rumbustious nation of animals on the path to true liberation. 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 optimism 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 center of this tumult is Destiny, who has returned to Jidada from exile to bear witness to revolution--and focus on the unofficial history and the potential legacy of the 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.
Glory centers around the unexpected fall of Old Horse, a long-serving leader of a fictional country, and the drama that follows for a rumbustious nation of animals on the path to true liberation. 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 optimism 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 center of this tumult is Destiny, who has returned to Jidada from exile to bear witness to revolution--and focus on the unofficial history and the potential legacy of the 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.
416 pages, Hardcover
First published March 8, 2022
About the author
NoViolet Bulawayo
12 books682 followersNoViolet Bulawayo (pen name of Elizabeth Tshele) is a Zimbabwean author, and Stegner Fellow at Stanford University (2012–2014).
Bulawayo won the 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story "Hitting Budapest," about a gang of street children in a Zimbabwean shantytown.
Her first novel We Need New Names (2013) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, making her the first African female writer to earn this distinction.
She has begun work on a memoir project.
Bulawayo won the 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story "Hitting Budapest," about a gang of street children in a Zimbabwean shantytown.
Her first novel We Need New Names (2013) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, making her the first African female writer to earn this distinction.
She has begun work on a memoir project.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 987 reviews
March 9, 2023
Glory is a satirical send-up of the fall and aftermath of the Robert Mugabe regime in Zimbabwe. The country, renamed Jidada for the story, is satirized as a janky outpost republic, caught in a post-colonial cycle of misrule. Each of the characters is portrayed as an animal - an old horse, donkey, pig, goat, tweeting baboon (guess who) - which lends a layer of farce to the proceedings. Life in Jidada is brutal, although for me the brutality is somewhat minimized because the victims, like the perpetrators, are talking animals. I can see, though, how the distancing device may make the book more readable for those who are closer to the trauma. References to Killer Kau’s hit Tholukuthi Hey, the unofficial pop anthem of resistance (iykyk), are punctuated throughout. Ordinarily, I might have appreciated a bit more subtlety, but one of the functions of the book is to lay bare the absolute farce of a strongman regime, particularly for leaders who until quite recently were considered untouchable for this type of satire. On that score, this is nicely done.
August 5, 2022
It's quite a challenge for a new book to use a device from a classic novel in a way which feels both relevant and entirely fresh. George Orwell's “Animal Farm” brilliantly satirised the Russian Revolution of 1917 and Stalinism in the Soviet Union by anthropomorphizing barnyard animals who fight to free themselves from the tyranny of their human farmer only to find themselves ensnared in an equally oppressive system. At first I felt skeptical that NoViolet Bulawayo used this same format by applying it to the 2017 Zimbabwean coup d'etat, but as I continued reading I discovered how this is a forceful and heartfelt way to update and expand upon Orwell's allegorical novella.
In Bulawayo's story Old Horse has been ruling the country of Jidada for forty years until he is suddenly ousted from power and a new regime takes control. Though the general population is presented with a simulacrum of a #freefairncredibleelection not much has changed where those in power rule with an iron fist, the economy deteriorates and many ordinary citizens continue to suffer. In doing so she captures the way language and political rhetoric can be weaponized to control a population and shore up power in our modern era. It's a book that succeeds in how it refers to specific historical events and describes the way all systems of government can abuse their power. It's a sweeping epic that evokes the plight of a nation and an intensely personal story about an expatriate's return to the chaos of her country. It brings to the centre the lives of women and girls who struggle under an oppressive patriarchal system. Moreover, it's a funny, heartbreaking, horrifying and utterly bewitching tale that I fell in love with.
Read my full review of Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo at LonesomeReader
In Bulawayo's story Old Horse has been ruling the country of Jidada for forty years until he is suddenly ousted from power and a new regime takes control. Though the general population is presented with a simulacrum of a #freefairncredibleelection not much has changed where those in power rule with an iron fist, the economy deteriorates and many ordinary citizens continue to suffer. In doing so she captures the way language and political rhetoric can be weaponized to control a population and shore up power in our modern era. It's a book that succeeds in how it refers to specific historical events and describes the way all systems of government can abuse their power. It's a sweeping epic that evokes the plight of a nation and an intensely personal story about an expatriate's return to the chaos of her country. It brings to the centre the lives of women and girls who struggle under an oppressive patriarchal system. Moreover, it's a funny, heartbreaking, horrifying and utterly bewitching tale that I fell in love with.
Read my full review of Glory by NoViolet Bulawayo at LonesomeReader
March 7, 2023
Now longlisted for the 2023 Women’s Prize.
Re-read following its shortlisting for the 2022 Booker Prize - I had always expected it to be a strong contender and deliberately read ahead of the longlist announcement. I have to say that the book worked better on a re-read and would I think be a worthy winner (although so would most of the shortlist).
7th in my longlist rankings (and so on the fringe of my own shortlist) - my Bookstagram rating, ranking, summary review and Book themed Golden Retriever photo is here: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChT2_KyMV...
ORIGINAL REVIEW
This is the second novel by the Zimbabwean born author Elizabeth Zandile Tshele who, writing under her pen name (inspired by the name of her late mother’s name and closest City to her home) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2013 for her debut “We Need New Names”.
Revisiting both my own reactions to that book (10 years or so later) and looking at other reviews from my Goodreads friends, my subjective impression is that “We Need New Names” was a book that was perhaps more admired than loved – one people perhaps felt they appreciated (perhaps as it was the first Black African woman to be shortlisted) more than they actually enjoyed (the book itself a slightly uneasy mix of two stories which did not entirely coalesce into a novel) – with most reviews at the 3-4 star level.
This second novel’s genesis was the author’s return to her birth county after the 2017 coup which deposed Robert Mugabe (and is increasingly influential young wife Grace, associated with Generation 40 young and post-independence-war faction), after 40 years of increasingly despotic rule. She witnessed the chaos of the post-Mugabe elections which lead to the rather inevitable election of Mugabe’s Deputy/VP Emmerson Mnangagwa (whose dismissal was a key trigger for the military coup, and whose nickname “Ngwena” means crocodile, leading to his faction of war veterans being known as Team Lacoste) and whose claims of a New Dispensation of economic policies proved short lived.
Initially thinking to write a non-fiction or then conventional fiction tale of what she was witnessing (and particularly how the post-coup hopes of the common people were quickly dashed) she decided to write a tale which drew explicitly on both George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” (a common analogy used in Zimbabwean political discourse) and on local animal-based folk-storytelling traditions – to write what is more a satirical analogy of the situation
The novel is set in a fictionalised country Jidada ruled (with the support of his attack dog para-military police force – The Defenders) at the start of the book by an ancient horse “The Father of the Nation”, whose young and ambitious Donkey wife Marvellous leads a young activist faction resented by the veteran Army Generals and who frequently makes attacks on the Vice President (also an aged horse, but with the brooding presence of a crocodile) Tuvy. Tuvy’s suspension leads in turn to a military coup, the hollow proclamation (including by a flock of specially trained birds) of a New Dispensation and a #freefairncredible election which is rigged from the outset to ensure Tuvy’s victory and the continued rule of the independence war veterans.
Now a word on the use of animals in the novel. These are very anthropomorphic animals – in fact it is probably better to say that they are effectively humans in animal form but living in our 21st Century world.
It is not like (it seems to me) Orwell’s book where the animal nature of the characters and in fact their progress/descent into human like behaviour is key to the plot, here the characters act like humans in almost every way (for example voting at 18, early pregnancies, taking showers) and in a world which, other than the fictionalised Jidada seems identical to our own (for example leaders flying on a plane to Devos, Chinese influence in Africa).
I had initially wondered if the different animals would represent or mimic tribal identity (but if they did it was not clear to) or if the humans in the novel would be the Westernised/colonising powers – but there are references to white animals and black animals, animals of the same type from different tribes and the President of America is a Twitter using baboon.
Yes Twitter as the world of social media is important to the novel – two excellent chapters consisting entirely of debate by Twitter about the political progress in Jidada and more generally the online and offline worlds are important in the novel.
My understanding is that the author used animal characters as a way to both gain some distance from the events she is describing and to bring her own unique take on the situation, she also has said she thinks it increases the Universality of the book. I have to say that I think the same might have been accompanied in different ways – for example as in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’s “The Wizard of the Crow” or Wole Soyinka’s “Chronicles From The Land of the Happiest People on Earth” but what I think did work is that the approach made the book slightly more immediately accessible than those brilliant novels.
Some of the writing can be a little grating, perhaps most of all the repetition of “Jidada with a -da and another -da”; the extremely liberal sprinklings of the word “tholukuthi” (meaning something like “you find out that” and which is from from the dance protest song Tholukuthi-Hey - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tVbi...) or the “When those who know about things said at this time XXX, they meant XXX” formulation.
And despite the appearance of accessibility and claim to Universality, the book also I think relies for any meaningful appreciation on (or more positively gives the reader an excuse to gain) a detailed knowledge of Zimbabwean history – little that happens in the book (at least from my Googling) does not have a fairly direct link, or at least very strong allusion, to actual events
As an example the post-independence Gukurahundi genocide - which becomes increasingly important to the novel through the character of Destiny (a goat) who fled the country for exile after arrest and torture for her part in pro-democracy demonstrations after a rigged election, and whose return and discovery of the trauma that her mother went through many years before is a large part of the narrative after the first third of the novel and also provides the most harrowing part of the novel and one of its two most powerful set of scenes.
Interestingly though the second most powerful set of scenes are those with which the book ends – which depart from Zimbabwe’s actual history to date by setting out a hopeful path for Jidada and one hopes for the actual country itself.
Overall I think this was an impressive piece of writing – again one I perhaps admired more than I always enjoyed and again I think one likely to be a strong Booker Prize contender.
Re-read following its shortlisting for the 2022 Booker Prize - I had always expected it to be a strong contender and deliberately read ahead of the longlist announcement. I have to say that the book worked better on a re-read and would I think be a worthy winner (although so would most of the shortlist).
7th in my longlist rankings (and so on the fringe of my own shortlist) - my Bookstagram rating, ranking, summary review and Book themed Golden Retriever photo is here: https://www.instagram.com/p/ChT2_KyMV...
ORIGINAL REVIEW
The sign that says 'Bulawayo, 10km' takes her by surprise - it doesn't feel to her she's even been that long on the road. Yes, you've actually been that long on the road, Destiny, and besides it being a relatively short drive you've been practically flying most of the time. And good thing you slowed down when you did, otherwise you'd have missed the turn. Bulawayo-Bulawayo-Bulawayo. She says the name out loud, lets it linger in the mouth, thinking, and not for the first time, What a dark, dark name.Meaning, where one gets killed, where there is killing. Yes, tholukuthi an ominous name that has made Destiny wonder endlessly about the proph-ecy of names, the terrible odds that the events of April 18, 1983, and the dark immediate years would fulfil the name. And in just a short while, she thinks, slowing down a bit, she'll be standing on Bulawayo earth. A kind of home, yes, but also a ruin. A place of slaughter. Of massacre. Of devastation and despair. Of blood and tears. Of disruption. Of the annihilation of families and family lines.
This is the second novel by the Zimbabwean born author Elizabeth Zandile Tshele who, writing under her pen name (inspired by the name of her late mother’s name and closest City to her home) was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2013 for her debut “We Need New Names”.
Revisiting both my own reactions to that book (10 years or so later) and looking at other reviews from my Goodreads friends, my subjective impression is that “We Need New Names” was a book that was perhaps more admired than loved – one people perhaps felt they appreciated (perhaps as it was the first Black African woman to be shortlisted) more than they actually enjoyed (the book itself a slightly uneasy mix of two stories which did not entirely coalesce into a novel) – with most reviews at the 3-4 star level.
This second novel’s genesis was the author’s return to her birth county after the 2017 coup which deposed Robert Mugabe (and is increasingly influential young wife Grace, associated with Generation 40 young and post-independence-war faction), after 40 years of increasingly despotic rule. She witnessed the chaos of the post-Mugabe elections which lead to the rather inevitable election of Mugabe’s Deputy/VP Emmerson Mnangagwa (whose dismissal was a key trigger for the military coup, and whose nickname “Ngwena” means crocodile, leading to his faction of war veterans being known as Team Lacoste) and whose claims of a New Dispensation of economic policies proved short lived.
Initially thinking to write a non-fiction or then conventional fiction tale of what she was witnessing (and particularly how the post-coup hopes of the common people were quickly dashed) she decided to write a tale which drew explicitly on both George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” (a common analogy used in Zimbabwean political discourse) and on local animal-based folk-storytelling traditions – to write what is more a satirical analogy of the situation
The novel is set in a fictionalised country Jidada ruled (with the support of his attack dog para-military police force – The Defenders) at the start of the book by an ancient horse “The Father of the Nation”, whose young and ambitious Donkey wife Marvellous leads a young activist faction resented by the veteran Army Generals and who frequently makes attacks on the Vice President (also an aged horse, but with the brooding presence of a crocodile) Tuvy. Tuvy’s suspension leads in turn to a military coup, the hollow proclamation (including by a flock of specially trained birds) of a New Dispensation and a #freefairncredible election which is rigged from the outset to ensure Tuvy’s victory and the continued rule of the independence war veterans.
Now a word on the use of animals in the novel. These are very anthropomorphic animals – in fact it is probably better to say that they are effectively humans in animal form but living in our 21st Century world.
It is not like (it seems to me) Orwell’s book where the animal nature of the characters and in fact their progress/descent into human like behaviour is key to the plot, here the characters act like humans in almost every way (for example voting at 18, early pregnancies, taking showers) and in a world which, other than the fictionalised Jidada seems identical to our own (for example leaders flying on a plane to Devos, Chinese influence in Africa).
I had initially wondered if the different animals would represent or mimic tribal identity (but if they did it was not clear to) or if the humans in the novel would be the Westernised/colonising powers – but there are references to white animals and black animals, animals of the same type from different tribes and the President of America is a Twitter using baboon.
Yes Twitter as the world of social media is important to the novel – two excellent chapters consisting entirely of debate by Twitter about the political progress in Jidada and more generally the online and offline worlds are important in the novel.
So that very soon it was noted that Jidada was actually not a country but two countries - there was of course the Country Country that was the real, physical space in which Jidadans walked and lived and queued and suffered and got pained, and then there was the Other Country, where Jidadans logged on and roared and raged and vented.
My understanding is that the author used animal characters as a way to both gain some distance from the events she is describing and to bring her own unique take on the situation, she also has said she thinks it increases the Universality of the book. I have to say that I think the same might have been accompanied in different ways – for example as in Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o’s “The Wizard of the Crow” or Wole Soyinka’s “Chronicles From The Land of the Happiest People on Earth” but what I think did work is that the approach made the book slightly more immediately accessible than those brilliant novels.
Some of the writing can be a little grating, perhaps most of all the repetition of “Jidada with a -da and another -da”; the extremely liberal sprinklings of the word “tholukuthi” (meaning something like “you find out that” and which is from from the dance protest song Tholukuthi-Hey - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tVbi...) or the “When those who know about things said at this time XXX, they meant XXX” formulation.
And despite the appearance of accessibility and claim to Universality, the book also I think relies for any meaningful appreciation on (or more positively gives the reader an excuse to gain) a detailed knowledge of Zimbabwean history – little that happens in the book (at least from my Googling) does not have a fairly direct link, or at least very strong allusion, to actual events
As an example the post-independence Gukurahundi genocide - which becomes increasingly important to the novel through the character of Destiny (a goat) who fled the country for exile after arrest and torture for her part in pro-democracy demonstrations after a rigged election, and whose return and discovery of the trauma that her mother went through many years before is a large part of the narrative after the first third of the novel and also provides the most harrowing part of the novel and one of its two most powerful set of scenes.
Interestingly though the second most powerful set of scenes are those with which the book ends – which depart from Zimbabwe’s actual history to date by setting out a hopeful path for Jidada and one hopes for the actual country itself.
Overall I think this was an impressive piece of writing – again one I perhaps admired more than I always enjoyed and again I think one likely to be a strong Booker Prize contender.
"This war was as complicated thing, Mother of Destiny. If I don't write this book then one day animals calling themselves the Real Liberators and True Patriots will call ugly names and then erase us from the story of the very country we sacrificed so much for because now that the war is over many will be perceived of the wrong ethnic group, the wrong clan, the wrong gender, the wrong clique, the wrong politics, the wrong whatever else they decide constitutes authentic Jidadaness. If I don't write, who will I blame when I then wake up One day to find myself in the belly of a crocodile that calls itself History, that devours the stories of everyone else and goes on to speak for us"
April 4, 2023
3.5⭐
“This is not an animal farm but Jidada with a -da and another -da!”
NoViolet Bulawayo’s Glory is an allegorical novel set in a fictional African country, Jidada, with an animal population throughout - anthropomorphic horses, dogs, pigs, goats, and chickens and others – comprising the ruling class, military, ministers and the commoners. Inspired by the 2017 coup that led to the removal of Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's president of nearly four decades from power, the story begins with the long-serving President, Father of the Nation, Old Horse, hailed for liberating Jidada from its colonizers decades ago, being removed from power by a carefully orchestrated coup. The removal of their leader was a cause for celebration, but when the Old Horse’s former Vice President, Tuvius “Tuvy” Delight Shasha ( a character based on Mugabe’s successor Emmerson Mnangagwa) quickly assumes the position of power - The Savior –with his own set of sycophants and yes-men at his beck and call- the Jidadans’ hopes for a better future are soon dashed. As the narrative progresses, political turmoil ensues - a seemingly never-ending cycle of corruption, megalomania, and oppression. Amidst the chaos, we meet Destiny, who has recently returned to her homeland after a long exile. Her family had suffered during the Old Horse’s regime and was witness to some of the most horrific violence in the history of the nation. She returns only to see history repeating itself under the new leadership. She shares in the pain and disillusionment of those who had hoped for their country’s better future but remains hopeful that a revolution with new and powerful voices would lead their country forward and prove to be a catalyst for positive change.
Overall, I found Glory to be a creative, thought-provoking and powerful read that manages to convey a strong message under a veneer of absurdity and humor. In several interviews and her Booker Library write-up the author has talked about how she was inspired by George Orwell’s Animal Farm while framing this novel. This is a lengthy novel - long drawn and descriptive and suffers from mild repetition (the frequency of certain words/phrases in the narrative could be a tad distracting for the reader but proved entertaining in audio narration)- but the author manages to weave a compelling narrative. It took me a while to get used to the tone and pace of the narrative , but as the story progressed (around the 20% mark), I was immersed. The author references several real characters and events from the past and present and and some of the horrific real events that are referred to within this story (including the Gukurahundi genocide of 1982) are hard to read. The nod to native folklore and storytelling enriches the narrative, and the humor and satirical elements render the bleak parts of this story easier to read. The author's characterizations of strong female characters ("femals") in this novel - be it the Old Horse's power hungry wife or the women actively opposing corruption and tyranny is worth mentioning and lends a feminist tone to the narrative.
While I initially found the anthropomorphism amusing, given the length of this novel, I can’t help but wonder whether this novel would have been equally (or even more, for that matter) impactful had the characters not been presented as talking animals who behave (almost in all respects) like human beings. Though the author’s story is inspired by Zimbabwe's political climate and the aftermath of Mugabe’s regime, all we need to do is take a look at the world around us- despots in power, regimes that have fallen, the state of contemporary politics the world around - and appreciate the timeliness and relevance of this novel.
I paired my reading with the excellent audio narration by Chipo Chung which truly enhanced my experience.
“Tholukuthi through these tales we learned there were in fact many untold narratives that were left out of the Seat of Power’s tales of the nation, that were excluded from Jidada’s great books of history. That the nation’s stories of glory were far from being the whole truth, and that sometimes the Seat of Power’s truths were actually half-truths and mistruths as well as deliberate erasures. Which in turn made us understand the importance not only of narrating our own stories, our own truths, but of writing them down as well so they were not taken from us, never altered, tholukuthi never erased, never forgotten.”
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“This is not an animal farm but Jidada with a -da and another -da!”
NoViolet Bulawayo’s Glory is an allegorical novel set in a fictional African country, Jidada, with an animal population throughout - anthropomorphic horses, dogs, pigs, goats, and chickens and others – comprising the ruling class, military, ministers and the commoners. Inspired by the 2017 coup that led to the removal of Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's president of nearly four decades from power, the story begins with the long-serving President, Father of the Nation, Old Horse, hailed for liberating Jidada from its colonizers decades ago, being removed from power by a carefully orchestrated coup. The removal of their leader was a cause for celebration, but when the Old Horse’s former Vice President, Tuvius “Tuvy” Delight Shasha ( a character based on Mugabe’s successor Emmerson Mnangagwa) quickly assumes the position of power - The Savior –with his own set of sycophants and yes-men at his beck and call- the Jidadans’ hopes for a better future are soon dashed. As the narrative progresses, political turmoil ensues - a seemingly never-ending cycle of corruption, megalomania, and oppression. Amidst the chaos, we meet Destiny, who has recently returned to her homeland after a long exile. Her family had suffered during the Old Horse’s regime and was witness to some of the most horrific violence in the history of the nation. She returns only to see history repeating itself under the new leadership. She shares in the pain and disillusionment of those who had hoped for their country’s better future but remains hopeful that a revolution with new and powerful voices would lead their country forward and prove to be a catalyst for positive change.
Overall, I found Glory to be a creative, thought-provoking and powerful read that manages to convey a strong message under a veneer of absurdity and humor. In several interviews and her Booker Library write-up the author has talked about how she was inspired by George Orwell’s Animal Farm while framing this novel. This is a lengthy novel - long drawn and descriptive and suffers from mild repetition (the frequency of certain words/phrases in the narrative could be a tad distracting for the reader but proved entertaining in audio narration)- but the author manages to weave a compelling narrative. It took me a while to get used to the tone and pace of the narrative , but as the story progressed (around the 20% mark), I was immersed. The author references several real characters and events from the past and present and and some of the horrific real events that are referred to within this story (including the Gukurahundi genocide of 1982) are hard to read. The nod to native folklore and storytelling enriches the narrative, and the humor and satirical elements render the bleak parts of this story easier to read. The author's characterizations of strong female characters ("femals") in this novel - be it the Old Horse's power hungry wife or the women actively opposing corruption and tyranny is worth mentioning and lends a feminist tone to the narrative.
While I initially found the anthropomorphism amusing, given the length of this novel, I can’t help but wonder whether this novel would have been equally (or even more, for that matter) impactful had the characters not been presented as talking animals who behave (almost in all respects) like human beings. Though the author’s story is inspired by Zimbabwe's political climate and the aftermath of Mugabe’s regime, all we need to do is take a look at the world around us- despots in power, regimes that have fallen, the state of contemporary politics the world around - and appreciate the timeliness and relevance of this novel.
I paired my reading with the excellent audio narration by Chipo Chung which truly enhanced my experience.
“Tholukuthi through these tales we learned there were in fact many untold narratives that were left out of the Seat of Power’s tales of the nation, that were excluded from Jidada’s great books of history. That the nation’s stories of glory were far from being the whole truth, and that sometimes the Seat of Power’s truths were actually half-truths and mistruths as well as deliberate erasures. Which in turn made us understand the importance not only of narrating our own stories, our own truths, but of writing them down as well so they were not taken from us, never altered, tholukuthi never erased, never forgotten.”
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March 7, 2023
Now Nominated for the underwhelming Women's Prize for Fiction 2023
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2022
Zimbabwean Animal Farm: Bulawayo depicts the history of her home country as a fable / political satire. Here, the country is called Jidada, but numerous links to historical figures and events (like the Gukurahundi and Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana, e.g.) show that it is indeed a version of Zimbabwe, a country that was under British colonial rule - and when it finally gained independence in 1980, was ruled by Robert Mugabe.
The ruler of Jidada is an Old Horse, whose health and power are in decline. His spouse is an extravagant donkey named Dr. Sweet Mother (fun fact: Mugabe's first wife Sally was known as "Amai", meaning mother; his second wife was known as "Gucci Grace" because of her extravagant lifestyle). She enters a power struggle with the VP, who is - you guessed it - a younger horse named Tuvy. With help of the dogs (= the military), Tuvy stages a coup d'état, becomes the new leader and announces that now, everything will be better - but of course, he is also a horse, just a different one. That's pretty much what happened in Zimbabwe: Mugabe wanted Grace to take over, he was ousted by the military and his VP Emmerson Mnangagwa took control. Mnangagwa is still ruling Zimbabwe.
Religion and magic (the priest is a pig) as tools of power and control play a major role, as well as propaganda as the dubious art of framing political issues in ideological ("comrades") and spiritual ("hallelujah!") terms - one of the central words is, as the title suggests, "glory", which in the novel is a concept individuals strife for and that is ascribed to incarnations of the state and its society according to personal preference and advantage.
By telling the story as a beast fable, Bulawayo gives it a level of meaning that goes beyond Zimbabwe and aims to say something about African postcolonial politics in general. But the genre has limitations, which is why fables or parables are usually not 400 pages long: They are usually shorter tales with a message that is delivered in a rather in-your-face way - and this obvious messaging is also present here, as the animals are not nuanced characters but blatantly represent positions and characteristics - and that goes on for 400 pages, way longer than necessary. As the book is told by a "we" that represents the people of Jidada, Bulawayo does pull off a narrative feat, but from a logical standpoint, it does the book no good: Tyrants are upheld by parts of a society, either through complicity or silence, and some scenes in the text even show that; there is no monolithic "we" in authoritarian regimes (or any society), this device mainly serves to reduce complexity in an already not very complex tale.
Granted: This reviewer is not the greatest fan of Animal Farm (sue me!), but at least it's short. "Glory" is very wordy, it just keeps hammering its point home and the animal characters are rendered as ciphers, they are no three-dimensional protagonists. I would have loved to read a well-written novel with interesting characters about postcolonial Zimbabwe and the aftermath of Mugabe.
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2022
Zimbabwean Animal Farm: Bulawayo depicts the history of her home country as a fable / political satire. Here, the country is called Jidada, but numerous links to historical figures and events (like the Gukurahundi and Nehanda Charwe Nyakasikana, e.g.) show that it is indeed a version of Zimbabwe, a country that was under British colonial rule - and when it finally gained independence in 1980, was ruled by Robert Mugabe.
The ruler of Jidada is an Old Horse, whose health and power are in decline. His spouse is an extravagant donkey named Dr. Sweet Mother (fun fact: Mugabe's first wife Sally was known as "Amai", meaning mother; his second wife was known as "Gucci Grace" because of her extravagant lifestyle). She enters a power struggle with the VP, who is - you guessed it - a younger horse named Tuvy. With help of the dogs (= the military), Tuvy stages a coup d'état, becomes the new leader and announces that now, everything will be better - but of course, he is also a horse, just a different one. That's pretty much what happened in Zimbabwe: Mugabe wanted Grace to take over, he was ousted by the military and his VP Emmerson Mnangagwa took control. Mnangagwa is still ruling Zimbabwe.
Religion and magic (the priest is a pig) as tools of power and control play a major role, as well as propaganda as the dubious art of framing political issues in ideological ("comrades") and spiritual ("hallelujah!") terms - one of the central words is, as the title suggests, "glory", which in the novel is a concept individuals strife for and that is ascribed to incarnations of the state and its society according to personal preference and advantage.
By telling the story as a beast fable, Bulawayo gives it a level of meaning that goes beyond Zimbabwe and aims to say something about African postcolonial politics in general. But the genre has limitations, which is why fables or parables are usually not 400 pages long: They are usually shorter tales with a message that is delivered in a rather in-your-face way - and this obvious messaging is also present here, as the animals are not nuanced characters but blatantly represent positions and characteristics - and that goes on for 400 pages, way longer than necessary. As the book is told by a "we" that represents the people of Jidada, Bulawayo does pull off a narrative feat, but from a logical standpoint, it does the book no good: Tyrants are upheld by parts of a society, either through complicity or silence, and some scenes in the text even show that; there is no monolithic "we" in authoritarian regimes (or any society), this device mainly serves to reduce complexity in an already not very complex tale.
Granted: This reviewer is not the greatest fan of Animal Farm (sue me!), but at least it's short. "Glory" is very wordy, it just keeps hammering its point home and the animal characters are rendered as ciphers, they are no three-dimensional protagonists. I would have loved to read a well-written novel with interesting characters about postcolonial Zimbabwe and the aftermath of Mugabe.
October 23, 2022
I’m just glad it’s over
March 9, 2023
When I say the reader laughed and cried, what I mean is the reader laughed and cried. Tholokuthi cried. And laughed. Because even the sticks and stones will tell you that sometimes history is so painful, so brutal, the only way to make it digestible is to lace it with humour.
The events in Bulawayo’s work of political satire are based on Zimbabwe’s recent history. From the opening chapter on the ZANU-PF rally of September 2017 to the death of a key political figure in September 2019. The characters are disguised as animals — donkeys, horses, dogs, cats, hen, sheep, cows — but their stories are real. They tell of oppression, censorship, rigged elections, betrayal, plunder, economic ruin. Of false promises. Of bitter tribalism. Of genocide and massacre. Of exile and return. Of choosing, again and again, to imagine a brighter future, while tripping over the grenades of the past.
When I speak of Bulawayo’s writing I speak of writing that is gloriously, raucously alive. Fearless. Incantatory. Peppered with Zulu and Ndebele slang. Infused with comic relief. With truth bombs. With magic and levity and wisdom. Tholokuthi the text could have done with some shortening — some tightening here, some snipping there — but all is forgiven in the wake of the book’s scorching finale.
Because Glory is an important work. A work filled with the voices of the dead. A work against forgetting. Against silence. A work about un-fearing and un-hating. Of rising above the patterns of the past. Of putting together what is broken. Of harnessing the power of the word. Of decolonizing the mind. Of discovering the true meaning of freedom.
For those who know about things say there is no night ever so long it does not end with dawn. And that, tholokuthi, is what the animals of Jidada, with a -da and another -da, are hoping for. Tholokuthi it is time.
Mood: Comic and devastating
Rating: 9/10
Awards: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2022, Longlisted for the Women's Prize 2023
PS. The term "tholokuthi" means "you find that" in isiZulu and isiNdebele, but can be used more broadly to imply emphasis and surprise, in the same way English speakers might say "really", "really really", "honestly" or "for real".
Also on Instagram.
The events in Bulawayo’s work of political satire are based on Zimbabwe’s recent history. From the opening chapter on the ZANU-PF rally of September 2017 to the death of a key political figure in September 2019. The characters are disguised as animals — donkeys, horses, dogs, cats, hen, sheep, cows — but their stories are real. They tell of oppression, censorship, rigged elections, betrayal, plunder, economic ruin. Of false promises. Of bitter tribalism. Of genocide and massacre. Of exile and return. Of choosing, again and again, to imagine a brighter future, while tripping over the grenades of the past.
When I speak of Bulawayo’s writing I speak of writing that is gloriously, raucously alive. Fearless. Incantatory. Peppered with Zulu and Ndebele slang. Infused with comic relief. With truth bombs. With magic and levity and wisdom. Tholokuthi the text could have done with some shortening — some tightening here, some snipping there — but all is forgiven in the wake of the book’s scorching finale.
Because Glory is an important work. A work filled with the voices of the dead. A work against forgetting. Against silence. A work about un-fearing and un-hating. Of rising above the patterns of the past. Of putting together what is broken. Of harnessing the power of the word. Of decolonizing the mind. Of discovering the true meaning of freedom.
For those who know about things say there is no night ever so long it does not end with dawn. And that, tholokuthi, is what the animals of Jidada, with a -da and another -da, are hoping for. Tholokuthi it is time.
Mood: Comic and devastating
Rating: 9/10
Awards: Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2022, Longlisted for the Women's Prize 2023
PS. The term "tholokuthi" means "you find that" in isiZulu and isiNdebele, but can be used more broadly to imply emphasis and surprise, in the same way English speakers might say "really", "really really", "honestly" or "for real".
Also on Instagram.
January 15, 2023
A book that through an Animal Farm like fable focusses on the recent history of Zimbabwe. Family ties, racial tension and hyperbole, told through an innovative voice, full of repetition and invocation, at times almost obscure a heartbreaking story
I don't care what haters say, talking about we're not even following our own constitution, at least it's our constitution we're not following
Without the chilling “Defending the revolution 1983” chapters, featuring racial tensions spilling over to destroy a family, I would have rated this book three stars.
The author is very strong in the description of intricate scenes, like the rally at the start of the book or citizens discussing political changes, scenes that are so much more lively and funny than the chapters which are more descriptive and zoomed out.
Ubiquitous internet make Glory feel more modern, together with Trump (“The Tweeting Baboon”) his tweeting being parodied, with animals being cyphers for a regime losing its grip. American police violence is also invoked by the regime to contrast how they are better treating their citizens: To black majority rule and beyond, to glory, we thought or I don't care what haters say, talking about we're not even following our own constitution, at least it's our constitution we're not following
New dispensation as slogan by the regime after it disposes of its long time dictator, a dispensation is special permission to do something that is normally not allowed. Endemic corruption ensues, with the new leader going to the World Economic Forum, using USD200 million annually on trips with a Gulfstream while domestically 17 hours power-cuts every day are enacted.
If there is a god at all, he has the sickest humor some dispirited animals think, when they see the very North Korean way how their president shows up at factories and offices.
The metaphor, where the government is a crocodile that first says it is vegetarian and the goes on a rampage, feels very poignant. Through all of the book the importance of family ties and clans is clear, the only thing that keeps the fictional country of Jidada going, but which also forms the fault line which could spark a civil war.
The fire that cooks your food and warms you today is the same fire that will burn you tomorrow feels as an apt warning and overall I found this novel of NoViolet Bulawayo a worthy and interesting 2022 Bookerprize shortlister, at times surprisingly funny and sometimes very heartbreaking.
I don't care what haters say, talking about we're not even following our own constitution, at least it's our constitution we're not following
Without the chilling “Defending the revolution 1983” chapters, featuring racial tensions spilling over to destroy a family, I would have rated this book three stars.
The author is very strong in the description of intricate scenes, like the rally at the start of the book or citizens discussing political changes, scenes that are so much more lively and funny than the chapters which are more descriptive and zoomed out.
Ubiquitous internet make Glory feel more modern, together with Trump (“The Tweeting Baboon”) his tweeting being parodied, with animals being cyphers for a regime losing its grip. American police violence is also invoked by the regime to contrast how they are better treating their citizens: To black majority rule and beyond, to glory, we thought or I don't care what haters say, talking about we're not even following our own constitution, at least it's our constitution we're not following
New dispensation as slogan by the regime after it disposes of its long time dictator, a dispensation is special permission to do something that is normally not allowed. Endemic corruption ensues, with the new leader going to the World Economic Forum, using USD200 million annually on trips with a Gulfstream while domestically 17 hours power-cuts every day are enacted.
If there is a god at all, he has the sickest humor some dispirited animals think, when they see the very North Korean way how their president shows up at factories and offices.
The metaphor, where the government is a crocodile that first says it is vegetarian and the goes on a rampage, feels very poignant. Through all of the book the importance of family ties and clans is clear, the only thing that keeps the fictional country of Jidada going, but which also forms the fault line which could spark a civil war.
The fire that cooks your food and warms you today is the same fire that will burn you tomorrow feels as an apt warning and overall I found this novel of NoViolet Bulawayo a worthy and interesting 2022 Bookerprize shortlister, at times surprisingly funny and sometimes very heartbreaking.
September 27, 2022
Shortlisted for Booker Prize 2022
Set in the fictional land of animals, Glory is a satirical take on Robert Mugabe’s fall and its aftermath in Zimbabwe. The country was under British colonial rule until 1980, when after years of civil war, it finally gained independence and Mugabe got elected as the first prime minister. He stayed in power till a coup d'état in 2017, despite large-scale corruption, civil unrest, a declining economy and a genocide. The country is renamed Jidada in the story, and different characters are turned into different animals. It follows multiple characters and POVs – an old horse as the ‘father of the nation’, a donkey as his ambitious wife, another horse as the new prime minister, a mother and daughter pair of goats – while taking the reader through different parts of history and politics of the nation. It shows the falls of the first prime minister, the takeover by different people from the same party and initial joy of the common people and their desperation when no improvement comes under the new regime. It ends on a hopeful note showing a path the real country is yet to take.
Although Glory is said to be inspired by Animal Farm, the animals here are extremely anthropomorphic. They live is houses, go to schools, travel to different nations and squabble on social media. The way this story is written, it’s very easy to project everything happening to humans, which makes the historically inspired events spine-chilling, but makes me wonder what the purpose of writing it with animals was. I can imagine the story told with humans and have a very similar impact.
But the writing is powerful. Very powerful. The short section on the Gukurahundi genocide told in a flashback is disturbingly well-written. The chapters dedicated to the Twitter war between different animals are fantastic. This book will move you to tears, but more often it will terrify you to realize that it’s not really fiction. For someone like me who had no idea of Zimbabwe’s politics, this book is a much-needed lesson in less popularized African history. Sometimes the writing felt grating because of the overuse of certain phrases or sentences, but that might be the author’s purpose as well. Also, I listened to the audio version narrated by Chipo Chung, and what an incredible performance it is.
A story that deserves attention and is highly deserving of the Booker nomination.
Set in the fictional land of animals, Glory is a satirical take on Robert Mugabe’s fall and its aftermath in Zimbabwe. The country was under British colonial rule until 1980, when after years of civil war, it finally gained independence and Mugabe got elected as the first prime minister. He stayed in power till a coup d'état in 2017, despite large-scale corruption, civil unrest, a declining economy and a genocide. The country is renamed Jidada in the story, and different characters are turned into different animals. It follows multiple characters and POVs – an old horse as the ‘father of the nation’, a donkey as his ambitious wife, another horse as the new prime minister, a mother and daughter pair of goats – while taking the reader through different parts of history and politics of the nation. It shows the falls of the first prime minister, the takeover by different people from the same party and initial joy of the common people and their desperation when no improvement comes under the new regime. It ends on a hopeful note showing a path the real country is yet to take.
Although Glory is said to be inspired by Animal Farm, the animals here are extremely anthropomorphic. They live is houses, go to schools, travel to different nations and squabble on social media. The way this story is written, it’s very easy to project everything happening to humans, which makes the historically inspired events spine-chilling, but makes me wonder what the purpose of writing it with animals was. I can imagine the story told with humans and have a very similar impact.
But the writing is powerful. Very powerful. The short section on the Gukurahundi genocide told in a flashback is disturbingly well-written. The chapters dedicated to the Twitter war between different animals are fantastic. This book will move you to tears, but more often it will terrify you to realize that it’s not really fiction. For someone like me who had no idea of Zimbabwe’s politics, this book is a much-needed lesson in less popularized African history. Sometimes the writing felt grating because of the overuse of certain phrases or sentences, but that might be the author’s purpose as well. Also, I listened to the audio version narrated by Chipo Chung, and what an incredible performance it is.
A story that deserves attention and is highly deserving of the Booker nomination.
May 30, 2023
Not since the execrable Booker winner Milkman, has a fellow nominee (and let me call it right here and end the suspense, undoubtable winner) been so thoroughly unreadable. I would have DNF'd it early on had I not been a completist and refused to let it tarnish my record of reading the complete longlist for 9 years in a row now.
Like that former travesty, this revels in one-dimensional (and here, cartoonishly anthropomorphized animal) characters who do almost nothing for over 400 pages, reiterating the same tropes over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over (which is the repetitious stylization of the novel itself, no doubt taking its cue from that OTHER Booker nominee [and one I actually enjoyed] Ducks, Newburyport). And like Ellmann's tome, it has the tic of not only repeating things endlessly (literally for pages and pages and pages) and creating long nonsensical lists, but also relying on the written 'tic' of interjecting almost every sentence with the word 'tholokuthi' (which, thanks to Google, I find means 'you find that'), as Ellmann did with 'the fact that'.
Not only didn't I care a whit for anyone, or anything that happens, I didn't even really learn much in the way of the history of Zimbabwe, which would seem to have been the impetus for this mess. Regardless, the two-year reprieve of actually having the best nominated novel win the Booker has come to an end, and we are back to the dregs of literature taking the prize.
PS/Update - so I was wrong about guessing this would take the Booker - but the ultimate winner (The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida) was almost as unreadable/boring - oh, for the glory days of Shuggie Bain and The Promise back again!!
Like that former travesty, this revels in one-dimensional (and here, cartoonishly anthropomorphized animal) characters who do almost nothing for over 400 pages, reiterating the same tropes over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over (which is the repetitious stylization of the novel itself, no doubt taking its cue from that OTHER Booker nominee [and one I actually enjoyed] Ducks, Newburyport). And like Ellmann's tome, it has the tic of not only repeating things endlessly (literally for pages and pages and pages) and creating long nonsensical lists, but also relying on the written 'tic' of interjecting almost every sentence with the word 'tholokuthi' (which, thanks to Google, I find means 'you find that'), as Ellmann did with 'the fact that'.
Not only didn't I care a whit for anyone, or anything that happens, I didn't even really learn much in the way of the history of Zimbabwe, which would seem to have been the impetus for this mess. Regardless, the two-year reprieve of actually having the best nominated novel win the Booker has come to an end, and we are back to the dregs of literature taking the prize.
PS/Update - so I was wrong about guessing this would take the Booker - but the ultimate winner (The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida) was almost as unreadable/boring - oh, for the glory days of Shuggie Bain and The Promise back again!!
August 13, 2022
Longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize
Where do I even begin with Glory, the sophomore novel from Zimbabwean author, NoViolet Bulawayo? She's 2 for 2 in getting her books nominated for the Booker Prize. And while I wasn't a huge fan of her debut We Need New Names, for some of the very same reasons I disliked that book, I LOVED this one. It's currently my top contender to win this year!
The novel is a satirical, fictionalized account of the 2017 Zimbabwean coup d'état that eventually pressured the resignation and removal of President Robert Mugabe.
In this story taking place in the fictional African nation of Jidada, the 'Father of the Nation' is forced out of his rule and eventually usurped by his vice president who goes on to...repeat history and essentially turn into the dictator that the rebels tried to eliminate.
Oh, and the twist? These characters are all animals. The leader is a horse, the military commanders are various breeds of dogs; we also follow goats and sheep, cats and hens. A la Orwell's Animal Farm, Bulawayo satirizes politics through barnyard animals.
But while at times its laugh out loud ridiculous, the overall tone is not light. That's what makes this book so effective. It's emotional core is strong; I even found myself tearing up at times when characters who have been beaten down and repeatedly abused by the powerful, dictatorial government, make connections that feel so real and raw and HUMAN. It doesn't matter that they are literal animals. Bulawayo manages to balance that absurdity with realism in a way that only highlights the struggle, never mocking it or reducing its power.
I also love the narrative voice in this book. Once I got into it—and I will admit it did take a few chapters to really get into the groove of what this book was doing—I was hooked. It almost reads at time like an oral history. I can fully imagine listening to someone telling you this story, recounting various historical events and their observations and involvement in them. I'm sure the audiobook for this is great, and might be helpful for people struggling to get into the rhythm of this writing.
I have to say, on paper I wasn't really excited to read this one. I thought it might feel derivative in its similarity to Animal Farm. But I was happy to be wrong! This is one of the best books I've read this year, and I think Bulawayo is pushing boundaries in form, syntax, genre and more with this one. I'd be happy to see it win this year's Booker Prize!
Where do I even begin with Glory, the sophomore novel from Zimbabwean author, NoViolet Bulawayo? She's 2 for 2 in getting her books nominated for the Booker Prize. And while I wasn't a huge fan of her debut We Need New Names, for some of the very same reasons I disliked that book, I LOVED this one. It's currently my top contender to win this year!
The novel is a satirical, fictionalized account of the 2017 Zimbabwean coup d'état that eventually pressured the resignation and removal of President Robert Mugabe.
In this story taking place in the fictional African nation of Jidada, the 'Father of the Nation' is forced out of his rule and eventually usurped by his vice president who goes on to...repeat history and essentially turn into the dictator that the rebels tried to eliminate.
Oh, and the twist? These characters are all animals. The leader is a horse, the military commanders are various breeds of dogs; we also follow goats and sheep, cats and hens. A la Orwell's Animal Farm, Bulawayo satirizes politics through barnyard animals.
But while at times its laugh out loud ridiculous, the overall tone is not light. That's what makes this book so effective. It's emotional core is strong; I even found myself tearing up at times when characters who have been beaten down and repeatedly abused by the powerful, dictatorial government, make connections that feel so real and raw and HUMAN. It doesn't matter that they are literal animals. Bulawayo manages to balance that absurdity with realism in a way that only highlights the struggle, never mocking it or reducing its power.
I also love the narrative voice in this book. Once I got into it—and I will admit it did take a few chapters to really get into the groove of what this book was doing—I was hooked. It almost reads at time like an oral history. I can fully imagine listening to someone telling you this story, recounting various historical events and their observations and involvement in them. I'm sure the audiobook for this is great, and might be helpful for people struggling to get into the rhythm of this writing.
I have to say, on paper I wasn't really excited to read this one. I thought it might feel derivative in its similarity to Animal Farm. But I was happy to be wrong! This is one of the best books I've read this year, and I think Bulawayo is pushing boundaries in form, syntax, genre and more with this one. I'd be happy to see it win this year's Booker Prize!
Read
March 8, 2023This book, Glory was long listed for the Booker Prize. I am not surprised that it did not win. I am sure the judges that year were reasonably decent and thoughtful citizens, just as maybe some of us are, or were, but they were from the Global North and this is a book from the Global South. For me as a person who has always lived in the northern hemisphere and never come close to equator, I found this book too literal, too unliterary, too obvious. But I can imagine that if you are a reader from the Global South, let alone from Zimbabwe or countries with similar regimes, that what for me are weaknesses in a book, might for you be strengths, and then maybe for you a book like this is like Oscar's post war drum performances in the Onion Cafe in The Tin Drum.
Many reviews mention Animal Farm, and that is I feel an unhelpful point of comparison. Orwell's work is more of an allegory, this is a pretty straight narrative of the rule of Emmerson Mnangagwa (known informally as 'the Crocodile' just as his alter ego in this book is) over Zimbabwe, but with the people replaced by animals, and she imagines an ending which so far has not come to pass. I assume that this was done so the author could create a bit of distance between herself an the brutality of her country of birth's lived experience , I am not sure that she thought through completely how this would work; as the animals all seem to have hands rather than the hooves or paws that one generally sees, at any rate they use human tools, weapons, computers, and mobile phones as if they had fingers and thumbs.
Aside from Animal farm there is a rich tradition of animal fables of which I am fond, indeed as a school child I even played the role of passing irritable old goat in a performance of Anansi the Spider. Fortunately species blind casting was employed which permitted a young lady even with a regrettable shortage of legs to play the part of Anasi, just as I played the goat even though I still have no horns or tail. To remedy my obvious physical deficiencies I wore a mask, which was good. Unfortunately the mask was made by another child who, quite reasonably, used their own face as a template for the mask and it happened that their eyes were far closer together than mine, so I couldn't see a thing once I wore the mask. Hopefully the goat was meant to be blind. I recall being guided onto the stage and helped off it after I had bleated out my lines at maximum volume. Perhaps I can kind of tie this all in together by saying something like that there needs to be a certain suspension of disbelief on the part of the audience and I don't think that I achieve that as a reader of Glory. Quite what is achieved by changing the species and the name of the country when she uses the actual names of languages spoken by people in Zimbabwe like Shona and Ndebele, and uses the actual history of Zimbabwe, I don't know, I assume as I said that the device allowed a degree of emotional and intellectual distance for the author.
It did however remind me of Animal Farm in another way. Long ago and moderately far away I attend a brief course on modern Polish history from which I remember only two things, the week when the lecturer showed a film in which he interviewed his mother, who was among those deported to Kazhakstan in 1939, and another week when he gave us a copy of a comic trip version of Animal Farm that had been serialised by a British newspaper possibly in the 1950s. It was a faithful version except that the ending was changed, since in the final panels of this version the animals storm the party, trample the pigs and drive out the humans, this our lecturer felt was a more accurate representation of the history of Eastern Europe - a cycle of overthrowing the authorities rather than a continual corruption and co-option of new pigs into the existing power structure. Glory's author certainly agrees or hopes that this will be the model for her own country of birth too.
By the end I felt that book had achieved a cumulative power, but then it is around 400 pages long, it is witty in places, generally bleak and impressively awful in parts - trigger warnings for genocide, suppression of elections, exploitation and misery. It is written in English but I would say that the author gives impressions of the types of English used by a variety of Zimbabweans, not all of them well educated or using English as a second language which they might not command in the way that a native speaker might, and certainly not one from the northern hemisphere - ad this goes for the narrative voice too.
Many reviews mention Animal Farm, and that is I feel an unhelpful point of comparison. Orwell's work is more of an allegory, this is a pretty straight narrative of the rule of Emmerson Mnangagwa (known informally as 'the Crocodile' just as his alter ego in this book is) over Zimbabwe, but with the people replaced by animals, and she imagines an ending which so far has not come to pass. I assume that this was done so the author could create a bit of distance between herself an the brutality of her country of birth's lived experience , I am not sure that she thought through completely how this would work; as the animals all seem to have hands rather than the hooves or paws that one generally sees, at any rate they use human tools, weapons, computers, and mobile phones as if they had fingers and thumbs.
Aside from Animal farm there is a rich tradition of animal fables of which I am fond, indeed as a school child I even played the role of passing irritable old goat in a performance of Anansi the Spider. Fortunately species blind casting was employed which permitted a young lady even with a regrettable shortage of legs to play the part of Anasi, just as I played the goat even though I still have no horns or tail. To remedy my obvious physical deficiencies I wore a mask, which was good. Unfortunately the mask was made by another child who, quite reasonably, used their own face as a template for the mask and it happened that their eyes were far closer together than mine, so I couldn't see a thing once I wore the mask. Hopefully the goat was meant to be blind. I recall being guided onto the stage and helped off it after I had bleated out my lines at maximum volume. Perhaps I can kind of tie this all in together by saying something like that there needs to be a certain suspension of disbelief on the part of the audience and I don't think that I achieve that as a reader of Glory. Quite what is achieved by changing the species and the name of the country when she uses the actual names of languages spoken by people in Zimbabwe like Shona and Ndebele, and uses the actual history of Zimbabwe, I don't know, I assume as I said that the device allowed a degree of emotional and intellectual distance for the author.
It did however remind me of Animal Farm in another way. Long ago and moderately far away I attend a brief course on modern Polish history from which I remember only two things, the week when the lecturer showed a film in which he interviewed his mother, who was among those deported to Kazhakstan in 1939, and another week when he gave us a copy of a comic trip version of Animal Farm that had been serialised by a British newspaper possibly in the 1950s. It was a faithful version except that the ending was changed, since in the final panels of this version the animals storm the party, trample the pigs and drive out the humans, this our lecturer felt was a more accurate representation of the history of Eastern Europe - a cycle of overthrowing the authorities rather than a continual corruption and co-option of new pigs into the existing power structure. Glory's author certainly agrees or hopes that this will be the model for her own country of birth too.
By the end I felt that book had achieved a cumulative power, but then it is around 400 pages long, it is witty in places, generally bleak and impressively awful in parts - trigger warnings for genocide, suppression of elections, exploitation and misery. It is written in English but I would say that the author gives impressions of the types of English used by a variety of Zimbabweans, not all of them well educated or using English as a second language which they might not command in the way that a native speaker might, and certainly not one from the northern hemisphere - ad this goes for the narrative voice too.
September 8, 2022
SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2022 BOOKER PRIZE
2.5, rounded down. What an endless slog through 400+ unnecessary pages, and a major conceptual misfire from a truly talented novelist, who was executing a flawed premise with extreme verbosity and repetitiveness.
The novel begins with possibly its weakest 100 pages, consisting of crude, almost entirely wit- and irony-free (and justifiably outraged) political satire about the corrupt, incompetent, brutal authoritarian regime of Robert Mugabe and his successors in Zimbabwe, the horrific facts of which are almost beyond, or maybe completely beyond parody: rigged elections ensuring one-party rule, legalized looting on a grandiose scale, an economy wrecked by asset-stripping and foreign sanctions, banned and opposition party members tortured in prison, death squads murdering villages of innocent civilians. These outrages might have been more outrageous if they had been described in non-fictional, journalistic prose than as forced satirical allegory.
Beyond the nod to Orwell, casting humans as animals (compared to what Art Spiegelman accomplished in Maus) added nothing to the narrative: horses are politicians, dogs are soldiers, and goats are common people. And since these animals are so heavily anthropomorphized-- or maybe these humans are so lightly animalized, to the point that I forgot they were animals for long stretches, until I was snapped out of it by the jarring ridiculousness of pigs using smartphones or dogs wielding machine guns.
But the Destiny and red butterfly chapters were undeniably wrenching and moving, and would have worked their spell as a much shorter, tighter, genuinely moving short novel. And the final chapters, where Buluwayo describes/prescribes a future revolutionary path for Jidada, and the healing that would follow when the regime's defenders recognized the fellow humanity of their fellow citizens,
allowed for a greater degree of moral ambiguity and complexity, transcending the crude binaries of the rest of the novel.
2.5, rounded down. What an endless slog through 400+ unnecessary pages, and a major conceptual misfire from a truly talented novelist, who was executing a flawed premise with extreme verbosity and repetitiveness.
The novel begins with possibly its weakest 100 pages, consisting of crude, almost entirely wit- and irony-free (and justifiably outraged) political satire about the corrupt, incompetent, brutal authoritarian regime of Robert Mugabe and his successors in Zimbabwe, the horrific facts of which are almost beyond, or maybe completely beyond parody: rigged elections ensuring one-party rule, legalized looting on a grandiose scale, an economy wrecked by asset-stripping and foreign sanctions, banned and opposition party members tortured in prison, death squads murdering villages of innocent civilians. These outrages might have been more outrageous if they had been described in non-fictional, journalistic prose than as forced satirical allegory.
Beyond the nod to Orwell, casting humans as animals (compared to what Art Spiegelman accomplished in Maus) added nothing to the narrative: horses are politicians, dogs are soldiers, and goats are common people. And since these animals are so heavily anthropomorphized-- or maybe these humans are so lightly animalized, to the point that I forgot they were animals for long stretches, until I was snapped out of it by the jarring ridiculousness of pigs using smartphones or dogs wielding machine guns.
But the Destiny and red butterfly chapters were undeniably wrenching and moving, and would have worked their spell as a much shorter, tighter, genuinely moving short novel. And the final chapters, where Buluwayo describes/prescribes a future revolutionary path for Jidada, and the healing that would follow when the regime's defenders recognized the fellow humanity of their fellow citizens,
allowed for a greater degree of moral ambiguity and complexity, transcending the crude binaries of the rest of the novel.
September 13, 2022
Rating: ⭐⭐ ½
Genre: Literary Fiction
Glory is the story of the downfall of a longtime ruler of the functional nation of Jidada (a fictional country in Africa). This is a nation of animals in which the dictator, Old Horse, has been ruling forever. The story is about the uprising of these animals and liberating themselves and their country from such rule and turning the country into the democracy they dreamt of. However, they were unaware that they were only replacing a dictator with another dictator!
Inspired by George Orwell’s modern classic novella Animal Farm, Glory also tries to tell a similar story in the same satirical way as the classic, but with a different treatment. The concept is brilliant. I think Animal Farm is one of the most enchanting stories I have read. I had very high hopes for Glory that it would be a new favorite, especially because a few of my friends loved it a lot. Unfortunately, that was not the case. More does not always translate to better. The biggest issue I had with this novel was its length. It needed editing for sure. I felt it was repetitive a lot and to convey a point, the author had to go unnecessarily back and forth to give us that point. It became tedious too fast.
If you enjoy political and satirical tales, give Glory a try if you don’t mind the repetitiveness. I feel the story could have been a lot more fun if it was in a more compact form. The whole point of turning a political story into a satirical one is to provide humor and entertainment along with constructive social criticism. Glory shines in the latter but lacks in the entertainment area.
Genre: Literary Fiction
Glory is the story of the downfall of a longtime ruler of the functional nation of Jidada (a fictional country in Africa). This is a nation of animals in which the dictator, Old Horse, has been ruling forever. The story is about the uprising of these animals and liberating themselves and their country from such rule and turning the country into the democracy they dreamt of. However, they were unaware that they were only replacing a dictator with another dictator!
Inspired by George Orwell’s modern classic novella Animal Farm, Glory also tries to tell a similar story in the same satirical way as the classic, but with a different treatment. The concept is brilliant. I think Animal Farm is one of the most enchanting stories I have read. I had very high hopes for Glory that it would be a new favorite, especially because a few of my friends loved it a lot. Unfortunately, that was not the case. More does not always translate to better. The biggest issue I had with this novel was its length. It needed editing for sure. I felt it was repetitive a lot and to convey a point, the author had to go unnecessarily back and forth to give us that point. It became tedious too fast.
If you enjoy political and satirical tales, give Glory a try if you don’t mind the repetitiveness. I feel the story could have been a lot more fun if it was in a more compact form. The whole point of turning a political story into a satirical one is to provide humor and entertainment along with constructive social criticism. Glory shines in the latter but lacks in the entertainment area.
October 17, 2022
He dreamt of the days of glory when Jidada was such an earthly paradise animals left their own miserable lands and flocked to it in search of a better life, found it, and not only just found it, no, but found it in utter abundance and sent word back for kin and friends to come and see it for themselves — this promised land, this stunning Eldorado called Jidada, a proper jewel of Africa, yes, tholukuthi a land not only indescribably wealthy but so peaceful they could’ve made it up. His Excellency also saw himself in his dream as he’d been back then — beautiful and brimming with unquestioned majesty, a horse that stepped on the ground and the earth agreed and the heavens above agreed and even hell itself also agreed because how could it disagree? Tholukuthi lost now in Jidada’s past glory, the Old Horse nestled deeper in his seat and began to snore a sonorous tune that the Comrades around him identified as Jidada’s old revolutionary anthem from the Liberation War days.
Like many reviewers, I found Glory to have been a bit of a slog �� too long, too circular, too committed to an allegorical conceit that seems unnecessary — but I also found myself entranced by the exotic language and rhythms and could recognise that this was not meant to be my story; it was not being told to me in a way that preferenced my own comfort and expectations and I grew to embrace the challenge. As a satirical allegory of Robert Mugabe’s last days as the dictator of Zimbabwe (and the out-of-the-frying-pan-and-into-the-fire of what came next), this is an undeniably important act of witnessing and recording his abuses; and as a Zimbabwean author, NoViolet Bulawayo is reporting from inside the story, and making art of it. I may not have connected completely with the material because of the format and length, but I can recognise why this is an important novel and that’s enough for my four stars.
Don’t even be fooled by how things may appear right now — I mean the terrible roads that kill people, the potholes, the broken sewer systems, the decrepit hospitals, the decrepit schools, the decrepit industrial sector, the decrepit rail system, or should I say a generally decrepit infrastructure. Then of course there’s the poor standard of living, the millions who’ve crossed and still cross borders in search of better, the misery and such things that may look depressing at first glance, that’ll make you think you’re maybe looking at a ruin. All these things happen to countries, it’s a fact of countryness, but rest assured we were in top form once. Plus, the point is not to judge a book by its cover. Because what remains is that Jidada is still a jewel, Africa’s jewel. And that right there is the Father of the Nation’s God-given legacy, reigning over a real gem. And moreover, he liberated and has protected that jewel so that Jidada will never be a colony again!
Because the novel is allegorical — the characters are animals: the ruling class are horses, the army dogs, the commoners sheep and goats and chickens — I have seen many reviews comparing Glory to Animal Farm, but I wonder if Bulawayo wasn’t using the animal device to say something important about the lingering effects of colonisation on African countries: just as the novel form itself has its roots outside of Africa, perhaps Bulawayo purposefully chose a classic of British literature onto which she could graft the language and rhythms of oral Zimbabwean storytelling; a marriage that doesn’t feel totally successful, and that just may be the point. The donkey wife of the “Father of the Nation” even says, more than once, “this is not an animal farm” (and I couldn’t help but notice that characters namedrop classics of African/African American literature when they use the phrases “things fall apart”, “a raisin in the sun”, and even “we need new names”; I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that there were others inserted that I didn’t twig to.) So, between the importance of what this novel actually memorialises (from Mugabe’s brutal dictatorial reign, through the Gukurahundi genocide of 1982-87, to the coup of 2017 which saw Mugabe replaced by his Vice President) and what the format has to say about the lingering effects of colonialism in Africa (and especially the ways in which the formerly oppressed are forced to communicate in the language of their oppressors), this truly did feel important, even if I wasn’t really enjoying it (and again, that might have been the point).
We heard and told stories of pain, stories of the Seat of Power’s violence so impossible sometimes animals simply tilted heads up and stared into the glowing Nehanda bones — reeling. Tholukuthi through these tales we learned there were in fact many untold narratives that were left out of the Seat of Power’s tales of the nation, that were excluded from Jidada’s great books of history. That the nation’s stories of glory were far from being the whole truth, and that sometimes the Seat of Power’s truths were actually half-truths and mistruths as well as deliberate erasures. Which in turn made us understand the importance not only of narrating our own stories, our own truths, but of writing them down as well so they were not taken from us, never altered, tholukuthi never erased, never forgotten.
Glory ends on a more hopeful note — with the populace recognising that the brutal oppression by the few is only possible with the compliance of the frightened multitudes — and it is my sincere wish that this hopefulness is alive in Bulawayo’s Zimbabwe. I am glad that this novel exists — even if I didn’t love the reading experience — and am also glad that it is being acclaimed; the true story of Zimbabwe deserves to be written down, artfully.
When those who know about things say there is no night ever so long it does not end with dawn, tholukuthi what they mean is that there is no night ever so long it does not end with dawn.
September 7, 2022
Shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2022
This is Bulawayo's second Booker longlisted novel, but I have yet to read the first (We Need New Names). I was not entirely sure what to expect, but on the whole I was pleasantly surprised by this.
It is influenced by and superficially similar to Animal Farm, but for me was a more interesting book, perhaps because the politics of Zimbabwe is inevitably covered with a first world slant by the British media. Bulawayo's perspective is more about how the politics affects ordinary people, particularly those who do not belong to the ruling party's main ethnic group. And although the setting is primarily Zimbabwe, this is never explicitly stated and most of the names have been changed, and most of the characters are assigned animal characteristics in a way that rarely intrudes on the more important subject matter of the story.
Well worth reading, and I wouldn't be disappointed if this makes the shortlist.
This is Bulawayo's second Booker longlisted novel, but I have yet to read the first (We Need New Names). I was not entirely sure what to expect, but on the whole I was pleasantly surprised by this.
It is influenced by and superficially similar to Animal Farm, but for me was a more interesting book, perhaps because the politics of Zimbabwe is inevitably covered with a first world slant by the British media. Bulawayo's perspective is more about how the politics affects ordinary people, particularly those who do not belong to the ruling party's main ethnic group. And although the setting is primarily Zimbabwe, this is never explicitly stated and most of the names have been changed, and most of the characters are assigned animal characteristics in a way that rarely intrudes on the more important subject matter of the story.
Well worth reading, and I wouldn't be disappointed if this makes the shortlist.
September 1, 2022
“This is not an animal farm but Jidada with a -da and another -da!“
Wow! I loved this book. It is so clever. It hit my sense of humor while still making important points about abuse of power in our world.
NoViolet Bulawayo was born in Zimbabwe. She has created a fable around Zimbabwean history that is easily transferrable to authoritarian situations in other countries. Zimbabwe is here renamed Jidada. Using animals as characters, the author tells the story of the country’s political turmoil after the fall of the Old Horse (representing Robert Mugabe). After initial celebrations and optimism for the future of the country, the people find more of the same when the Old Horse’s Vice President takes over. Instead of the promised free/fair/credible elections, the Vice President simply refuses to honor the vote in favor of the opposition, seizes power, and continues the cycle of oppression. The country endures greed, corruption, violence, disappearances, and other human rights abuses.
Bulawayo’s writing is playful, colorful, and occasionally quite humorous. The advantage of using fable is that it can convey sharp social commentary in a way that is delightful to read while not losing sight of the weighty issues it addresses. The language also draws on the African traditions of oral storytelling, which are evident in repetitive phrasing and unique words.
In the past few years, I have read a number of books that reference the history of Zimbabwe, so I was familiar with the events portrayed in this story. Anyone interested in the history of Africa and its challenges in finding ethical leadership will likely enjoy this book. Those not living in Africa can find a clear warning about the path to dictatorship and what can happen when civil rights are disregarded. It won’t be a fit for everyone’s taste, but it definitely matches mine. I am very glad I read it and am adding it to my favorites. Tholukuthi hey! Highly recommended! I am adding it to my favorites.
Memorable Passages:
“I don’t care what haters say, talking about we’re not even following our own constitution, at least it’s our constitution we’re not following. And the day we actually decide to follow it, everyone will see why they call it one of the best in the world.”
“She’d learn too that not only were they breathing fiascoes with no love or respect whatsoever for the nation they purported to serve, yes, tholukuthi toads with no leadership, no ethics, no principles, no sense of justice, no compassion, no discipline, no honesty, no idea of what real service to the nation looked like, but they were also no better than the very oppressors they’d replaced.”
“Time veers, leaps backward. We trip on our own hopes, we teeter, hurtle into a red past we now know has been here all along, lurking like a crocodile. And before we can ask ourselves if what we’re seeing is really what we’re seeing—war is upon us. As it was upon us in the last election, just like it was upon us in the one before that, as it was upon us in the election prior to that, yes, tholukuthi as it has always been upon us. There is the all-too-familiar thwack-smash of hard weapon on flesh, gunshots, screams.”
“[T]he children of the nation found themselves standing hungry and thirsty and hopeless and penniless in the queues, tholukuthi Tuvy’s [the new dictator’s] eyes watching them from old election posters that promised a new and better Jidada they now understood, with a heartbreaking knowledge, would never ever come, was never meant to come.”
Wow! I loved this book. It is so clever. It hit my sense of humor while still making important points about abuse of power in our world.
NoViolet Bulawayo was born in Zimbabwe. She has created a fable around Zimbabwean history that is easily transferrable to authoritarian situations in other countries. Zimbabwe is here renamed Jidada. Using animals as characters, the author tells the story of the country’s political turmoil after the fall of the Old Horse (representing Robert Mugabe). After initial celebrations and optimism for the future of the country, the people find more of the same when the Old Horse’s Vice President takes over. Instead of the promised free/fair/credible elections, the Vice President simply refuses to honor the vote in favor of the opposition, seizes power, and continues the cycle of oppression. The country endures greed, corruption, violence, disappearances, and other human rights abuses.
Bulawayo’s writing is playful, colorful, and occasionally quite humorous. The advantage of using fable is that it can convey sharp social commentary in a way that is delightful to read while not losing sight of the weighty issues it addresses. The language also draws on the African traditions of oral storytelling, which are evident in repetitive phrasing and unique words.
In the past few years, I have read a number of books that reference the history of Zimbabwe, so I was familiar with the events portrayed in this story. Anyone interested in the history of Africa and its challenges in finding ethical leadership will likely enjoy this book. Those not living in Africa can find a clear warning about the path to dictatorship and what can happen when civil rights are disregarded. It won’t be a fit for everyone’s taste, but it definitely matches mine. I am very glad I read it and am adding it to my favorites. Tholukuthi hey! Highly recommended! I am adding it to my favorites.
Memorable Passages:
“I don’t care what haters say, talking about we’re not even following our own constitution, at least it’s our constitution we’re not following. And the day we actually decide to follow it, everyone will see why they call it one of the best in the world.”
“She’d learn too that not only were they breathing fiascoes with no love or respect whatsoever for the nation they purported to serve, yes, tholukuthi toads with no leadership, no ethics, no principles, no sense of justice, no compassion, no discipline, no honesty, no idea of what real service to the nation looked like, but they were also no better than the very oppressors they’d replaced.”
“Time veers, leaps backward. We trip on our own hopes, we teeter, hurtle into a red past we now know has been here all along, lurking like a crocodile. And before we can ask ourselves if what we’re seeing is really what we’re seeing—war is upon us. As it was upon us in the last election, just like it was upon us in the one before that, as it was upon us in the election prior to that, yes, tholukuthi as it has always been upon us. There is the all-too-familiar thwack-smash of hard weapon on flesh, gunshots, screams.”
“[T]he children of the nation found themselves standing hungry and thirsty and hopeless and penniless in the queues, tholukuthi Tuvy’s [the new dictator’s] eyes watching them from old election posters that promised a new and better Jidada they now understood, with a heartbreaking knowledge, would never ever come, was never meant to come.”
August 15, 2022
Bulawayo has interesting things to say and it's fascinating to get an insider's view of Zimbabwe and the Mugabe regime. But I just didn't see what the point of the animals was given that everyone is an animal - apart from the obvious Animal Farm reference and the pointer to this being satire (as if we couldn't work that out for ourselves). It feels like the book itself struggles to maintain the conceit and loses momentum quite fast so that the whole thing outstays its welcome. The important material would have perhaps been better served by essays or other non-fiction.
August 27, 2022
Ah, this is so hard for me to review because truth be told it was 60% an arduous slog and 40% deep admiration for the attempt at something so difficult.
I enjoy fiction when it teaches me about history and Glory isn't a bad way to learn more about the Mugabe regime. It is a very thinly veiled political history of Zimbabwe with plenty of lessons for those interested in avoiding authoritarian rulers in their own countries. It's also a very good portrayal of what subversion of democracy looks like. It's almost comical until it very much isn't and that journey is worth the sometimes frustration at what the Guardian calls the author's stylistic dexterity
In practical terms, this means your going to be reading certain phrases over and over again, while also dealing with random insertions of repeated words, that can last as long as a page. It's kind of like a conceptual art piece and well I didn't love it, and I didn't need it.
The other aspect, that I could have done without was the animals. I decided early on I would ignore all the hooves and tails and why does a cow iron questions and just sub in people. I think the comparisons to Animal Farm didn't really help me with this novel. I would much rather hold it up next to other novels by African authors dealing with the legacy of colonialism in their countries and on that score, this is a very valuable addition to the conversation.
Side note: reading this did lead me down an internet rabbit hole about Grace Mugabe and her love of shopping.
I enjoy fiction when it teaches me about history and Glory isn't a bad way to learn more about the Mugabe regime. It is a very thinly veiled political history of Zimbabwe with plenty of lessons for those interested in avoiding authoritarian rulers in their own countries. It's also a very good portrayal of what subversion of democracy looks like. It's almost comical until it very much isn't and that journey is worth the sometimes frustration at what the Guardian calls the author's stylistic dexterity
In practical terms, this means your going to be reading certain phrases over and over again, while also dealing with random insertions of repeated words, that can last as long as a page. It's kind of like a conceptual art piece and well I didn't love it, and I didn't need it.
The other aspect, that I could have done without was the animals. I decided early on I would ignore all the hooves and tails and why does a cow iron questions and just sub in people. I think the comparisons to Animal Farm didn't really help me with this novel. I would much rather hold it up next to other novels by African authors dealing with the legacy of colonialism in their countries and on that score, this is a very valuable addition to the conversation.
Side note: reading this did lead me down an internet rabbit hole about Grace Mugabe and her love of shopping.
August 5, 2023
“Words not only mattered but they were power. Words were muti. Words were weapons. Words were magic. Words were church. Words were wealth. Words were life.”
There are going to be inevitable comparisons with Animal Farm and terms like Orwellian are going to be bandied about. It is a satire on the last forty or so years of history in Zimbabwe, here renamed Jidada. All of the characters are animals of varying sorts and varieties: horses, pigs, cats, dogs, donkeys, goats, geese, ducks, peacocks, crocodiles, hens and possibly more. I may have missed a few. It tells the story of a totalitarian regime ruled by “the old horse” and his downfall. This leads to the birth of hope until there is again despair and disillusion. As the song by The Who goes:
“Meet the new boss: same as the old boss”
Social media now plays a role and there is a very perceptive comment on queueing:
“Standing on hind legs, the back leaning against a wall, tail curled or tucked between the legs. Sitting on the pavement. Squatting. Holding on to walls. Sleeping queues. Sleeping pressed together like hot loaves of bread in queues. Sleeping standing with one eye open in queues.”
Bulawayo ties in African folklore into the tale and so you have an interesting juxtaposition of the old and the new. The novel is in very small sections and this made it easy to read and to put down and come back to. The language is almost a performance in itself, consider this description of the initial reactions to the fall of the dictator and the arrival of a new regime:
“The new Dispensation was such a show bird that very soon other parrots learned the strange new song that now seemed to always be in Jidada’s airs. It felt to the birds like another popular fad not to be left out of, and so in no time crows were cawing New Dispensation, owls were hooting New Dispensation, sparrows were chirping New Dispensation, canaries were singing New Dispensation, doves were cooing New Dispensation, hornbills and other birds were calling New Dispensation, and the cicadas were droning New Dispensation, bees were buzzing New Dispensation, crickets and grasshoppers and other insects were chirping New Dispensation so that Jidada’s hedges and trees and air and skies and even the jungles outside Jidada were all New Dispensation New Dispensation New Dispensation, yes, tholukuthi New Dispensation everywhere and New Dispensation all the time.”
Before tying this too closely to Animal Farm, we need to remember that much African folklore tells stories about animals as well.
It’s sometimes difficult to follow and can meander a little; but it is a sharp and well-aimed satire. Like the list of government posts:
“Minister of Order, Minister of the Revolution, Minister of Propaganda, Minister of Things, Minister of Disinformation, Minister of Corruption, Minister of Homophobic Affairs, and Minister of Looting”
The variety of narrative voices works as well and this is certainly worth reading.
There are going to be inevitable comparisons with Animal Farm and terms like Orwellian are going to be bandied about. It is a satire on the last forty or so years of history in Zimbabwe, here renamed Jidada. All of the characters are animals of varying sorts and varieties: horses, pigs, cats, dogs, donkeys, goats, geese, ducks, peacocks, crocodiles, hens and possibly more. I may have missed a few. It tells the story of a totalitarian regime ruled by “the old horse” and his downfall. This leads to the birth of hope until there is again despair and disillusion. As the song by The Who goes:
“Meet the new boss: same as the old boss”
Social media now plays a role and there is a very perceptive comment on queueing:
“Standing on hind legs, the back leaning against a wall, tail curled or tucked between the legs. Sitting on the pavement. Squatting. Holding on to walls. Sleeping queues. Sleeping pressed together like hot loaves of bread in queues. Sleeping standing with one eye open in queues.”
Bulawayo ties in African folklore into the tale and so you have an interesting juxtaposition of the old and the new. The novel is in very small sections and this made it easy to read and to put down and come back to. The language is almost a performance in itself, consider this description of the initial reactions to the fall of the dictator and the arrival of a new regime:
“The new Dispensation was such a show bird that very soon other parrots learned the strange new song that now seemed to always be in Jidada’s airs. It felt to the birds like another popular fad not to be left out of, and so in no time crows were cawing New Dispensation, owls were hooting New Dispensation, sparrows were chirping New Dispensation, canaries were singing New Dispensation, doves were cooing New Dispensation, hornbills and other birds were calling New Dispensation, and the cicadas were droning New Dispensation, bees were buzzing New Dispensation, crickets and grasshoppers and other insects were chirping New Dispensation so that Jidada’s hedges and trees and air and skies and even the jungles outside Jidada were all New Dispensation New Dispensation New Dispensation, yes, tholukuthi New Dispensation everywhere and New Dispensation all the time.”
Before tying this too closely to Animal Farm, we need to remember that much African folklore tells stories about animals as well.
It’s sometimes difficult to follow and can meander a little; but it is a sharp and well-aimed satire. Like the list of government posts:
“Minister of Order, Minister of the Revolution, Minister of Propaganda, Minister of Things, Minister of Disinformation, Minister of Corruption, Minister of Homophobic Affairs, and Minister of Looting”
The variety of narrative voices works as well and this is certainly worth reading.
Read
March 16, 2022I've never been in this situation before - giving a rave review to a book I DNF'ed by page 50. The failure is all mine - I can only handle satire in small doses, no matter how delicious the dose. Instead of reading further, I dipped into many pages at random and found delights on every one. The language is wickedly exuberant, the characters/animals perfect pitch avatars for their real-life counterparts.
Take for example "Dr. Sweet Mother", the younger donkey-wife of the aged horse Father of the Nation, who glories in her ability to whip crowds into a frenzy of patriotism. In one scene she is watching a video of one of her speeches:
Take for example "Dr. Sweet Mother", the younger donkey-wife of the aged horse Father of the Nation, who glories in her ability to whip crowds into a frenzy of patriotism. In one scene she is watching a video of one of her speeches:
"....she shines, flies, soars, leaps, waltzes, sashays, swims, pirouettes, glides, twerks, somersaults - she can pull whatever move, do anything, you name it - only coming short of raising the dead in her mother tongue."....."The applause at the end of her delivery rings right in her heart all over again, and she increases the volume, feels the sound hit her bones, whip and stir the blood before lifting the intestines, the pancreas, the liver - tholukuthi generally all the innards, and, almost levitating now, flags her tail, raises both her front hooves, pumps them hard and cheers along with her admiring on-screen audience."
August 12, 2022
The novel’s strengths are the authorial voice, the language fluidity and rhythm, its heart and playfulness. If you take away the gimmick, however, you realise the worldbuilding is unremarkable, the events recognizable in their terrifying normality: the animals eat human food, pour themselves drinks, do things that go viral, conspire against each other, perpetuate misogyny and religious nonsense, you name it.
I stopped trying to imagine how a hoofed animal might go about tweeting or holding a revolver, because in my mind it all became a caricatural version of ‘Animal Farm.’ So I focused on the “fatherfucking coup” and its outcome, but I don’t know who thought substituting animals for humans was necessary… it added no depth to the story.
⇝ 2.5 stars
I stopped trying to imagine how a hoofed animal might go about tweeting or holding a revolver, because in my mind it all became a caricatural version of ‘Animal Farm.’ So I focused on the “fatherfucking coup” and its outcome, but I don’t know who thought substituting animals for humans was necessary… it added no depth to the story.
⇝ 2.5 stars
August 7, 2022
For me, this book landed in an interesting way. I like modern architecture . . .and when I see it, I love it in many, many forms. But if I happen to see, say, Cathedrale Notre-Dame . . .yeah, it's not modern, but like WOW, right?
That's exactly how I felt about this book. I don't like satire as a general rule, and this book was certainly satirical. And I hate magical realism, and this book had touches of that. And usually, I like stories that are told in straightforward language, but with original telling details that say it all. And this book was more like a super talented preacher was giving a brilliant sermon - - rhythmic and repetitive (in a good way) and more lush.
And all I can say at the end, is wow.
Did I like it? Well, I wouldn't want this to be my everyday reading experience, and I wouldn't necessarily seek another book like it out. But when you stumble upon something masterful, you know.
That's exactly how I felt about this book. I don't like satire as a general rule, and this book was certainly satirical. And I hate magical realism, and this book had touches of that. And usually, I like stories that are told in straightforward language, but with original telling details that say it all. And this book was more like a super talented preacher was giving a brilliant sermon - - rhythmic and repetitive (in a good way) and more lush.
And all I can say at the end, is wow.
Did I like it? Well, I wouldn't want this to be my everyday reading experience, and I wouldn't necessarily seek another book like it out. But when you stumble upon something masterful, you know.
August 8, 2022
Absolutely absurd. And I ate it all up.
January 31, 2023
Tholukuthi it took the first decade of the donkey's married life for her, by patiently piecing together fragments of the Father of the Nation's nightmares and sleep talk, sometimes including whole conversations, lec-tures, debates, arguments, pleas, confessions, musings, by paying special attention to the intimate talk of the Seat of Power and Inner Circle, to understand that the rumours she'd heard throughout her youth, from those who really know about things, were true — that the Father of the Nation in fact lived with ghosts, that the Father of the Nation, and by extension the Seat of Power, the Party of Power and thus Jidada with a -da and another -da itself, had a complicated history that wasn't necessarily all glory.
Glory is a magic-realist style story based on the political history of Zimbabwe, beginning with the 2019 coup against Robert Mugabe and his replacement by Emmerson Mnangagwa, but also, in its more moving and powerful sections, focusing on the Gukurahundi genocide in the mid 1980s, and then concluding with an optimistic prediction for the country's history.
This is an entertaining and powerful read. But judged as a Booker contender, it's hard to get away from the fact that the books central concept - that the characters are animals - simply doesn't work, and the reader soon filters that out. And that the main reason for the choice - to make the story more allegorical and hence universal - actually detracts from the book's most powerful aspect, which is the link to real events in Zimbabwean history.
3.5 stars.
Glory is a magic-realist style story based on the political history of Zimbabwe, beginning with the 2019 coup against Robert Mugabe and his replacement by Emmerson Mnangagwa, but also, in its more moving and powerful sections, focusing on the Gukurahundi genocide in the mid 1980s, and then concluding with an optimistic prediction for the country's history.
This is an entertaining and powerful read. But judged as a Booker contender, it's hard to get away from the fact that the books central concept - that the characters are animals - simply doesn't work, and the reader soon filters that out. And that the main reason for the choice - to make the story more allegorical and hence universal - actually detracts from the book's most powerful aspect, which is the link to real events in Zimbabwean history.
3.5 stars.
August 20, 2022
Fable: a short story, typically with animals as characters, conveying a moral.
Animals as characters... check.
Conveying a moral... check.
A short story... ah, hell no.
Comparisons to Orwell's incisive, potent, brilliant, actual political fable are greatly exaggerated.
Animals as characters... check.
Conveying a moral... check.
A short story... ah, hell no.
Comparisons to Orwell's incisive, potent, brilliant, actual political fable are greatly exaggerated.
May 8, 2024
In her 2022 surrealist satirical novel Glory, author NoViolet Bulawayo welcomes readers to the fictional country of Jidada. Jidada is a mélange of African countries, their current sociopolitical climates, and their recent histories; having been colonized, plundered, and exploited—by white Europe and the USA, now finding its footing with the ideas of Freedom and Independence.
This footing might be found on bipedal feet or quadrupeds; on paws, on flippers. On hooves, on fins, for the citizens of Jidada, just like Orwell's Animal Farm, is a beast fable
🫏🦆🐈🐄🐎🐊🐕🐏🐖
Despite Glory's unlikely storytellers, their insightful tale tells us of our own world. It illustrates the myriad ways colonialism harms, and its seemingly everlasting aftereffects. When soil has been salted, what can be expected to grow there? Haven't the farmers left with the land the right to be frustrated? When crops fail to sprout, and one's life is a cycle of hardship, those difficulties will doubtlessly inform lifelong decision-making.
Not everyone who was hungry, once fed, will become a hero. Not always, once one's plate is full, will they be eager to share. Having known lack, the impulse is strong to accumulate and hoard.
And then there are others who become heroes, despite hardship; those who look at the salted land not with despair, but hope. They might take radical action to make change, but so often is that the lesson: When the old ways don't work, it's not always a matter of trying them again, or trying to fix them. Sometimes, you just have to toss them out for something new.
Having been raised in America, my history education was almost exclusively European, and subsequently have more context for Animal Farm's allegory than I do for Glory's. While it keeps the reader up to speed on the broad strokes of modern Africa through its fictional Jidada, I know I'd appreciate its intricacies the more if only I had brought more knowledge in with me. This in mind, I can't say what groups or interests the different species of animals represented here stand for, aside from the crocodiles and butterflies, like I can those in Animal Farm.
Additionally, I recently read Bulawayo's stunning debut We Need New Names and adored her character work on Darling and her friends and family. While Glory has as much pathos as We Need New Names had, I wish it also featured a more central character like Darling. I felt myself most compelled while reading about Destiny and her family history. Perhaps it's shallow of me, but I almost wish the novel was told mostly through her eyes.
This footing might be found on bipedal feet or quadrupeds; on paws, on flippers. On hooves, on fins, for the citizens of Jidada, just like Orwell's Animal Farm, is a beast fable
🫏🦆🐈🐄🐎🐊🐕🐏🐖
Despite Glory's unlikely storytellers, their insightful tale tells us of our own world. It illustrates the myriad ways colonialism harms, and its seemingly everlasting aftereffects. When soil has been salted, what can be expected to grow there? Haven't the farmers left with the land the right to be frustrated? When crops fail to sprout, and one's life is a cycle of hardship, those difficulties will doubtlessly inform lifelong decision-making.
Not everyone who was hungry, once fed, will become a hero. Not always, once one's plate is full, will they be eager to share. Having known lack, the impulse is strong to accumulate and hoard.
And then there are others who become heroes, despite hardship; those who look at the salted land not with despair, but hope. They might take radical action to make change, but so often is that the lesson: When the old ways don't work, it's not always a matter of trying them again, or trying to fix them. Sometimes, you just have to toss them out for something new.
Having been raised in America, my history education was almost exclusively European, and subsequently have more context for Animal Farm's allegory than I do for Glory's. While it keeps the reader up to speed on the broad strokes of modern Africa through its fictional Jidada, I know I'd appreciate its intricacies the more if only I had brought more knowledge in with me. This in mind, I can't say what groups or interests the different species of animals represented here stand for, aside from the crocodiles and butterflies, like I can those in Animal Farm.
Additionally, I recently read Bulawayo's stunning debut We Need New Names and adored her character work on Darling and her friends and family. While Glory has as much pathos as We Need New Names had, I wish it also featured a more central character like Darling. I felt myself most compelled while reading about Destiny and her family history. Perhaps it's shallow of me, but I almost wish the novel was told mostly through her eyes.
Read
August 14, 2022Booker Longlist re read: yeah, no. I can’t handle it. Maybe if it wasn’t satirical, but satire just doesn’t work for me, especially absurdist comedy, then coupled with the zoomorphism or whatever this is, which, at 50 pages in, sure isn’t doing anything of interest to me. Gave it another go, but nope.
I just can’t accept the central conceit so I’m not going to rate this, though I’m DNFing it. Animals dressed up and anthropomorphized to the extent of eating stuff they wouldn’t and wearing stuff they wouldn’t, conjoined with what is going to be something about colonialism, when anthropomorphizing is replicating colonialism, I just can’t process. I would hope that the story becomes About that, at some point. In the meantime, though, I just can’t help but picture this in my head as the most absurd cartoon and am constantly pulled out of the fiction as my brain encounters dissonance.
I just can’t accept the central conceit so I’m not going to rate this, though I’m DNFing it. Animals dressed up and anthropomorphized to the extent of eating stuff they wouldn’t and wearing stuff they wouldn’t, conjoined with what is going to be something about colonialism, when anthropomorphizing is replicating colonialism, I just can’t process. I would hope that the story becomes About that, at some point. In the meantime, though, I just can’t help but picture this in my head as the most absurd cartoon and am constantly pulled out of the fiction as my brain encounters dissonance.
January 24, 2024
Animal Farm meets Half of a Yellow Sun in this clever reimagining of the harsh aftermath of the government coup of Zimbabwe. Filled with animated prose and overflowing with personality, Glory is a powerhouse of both fact-based fiction and real political commentary. An ode to the resilience and cultural expression of the people who will not be stifled by government control, the women who silently carry the hopes and dreams of a nation on their backs, and the youth who will do anything to claim their freedoms, express patriotism on their own terms. Exciting, endearing, and a timely satire of so many nations on the brink of riveting change, and the people who give those nations life, goals, language, and love.
January 16, 2022
I can hardly believe that NoViolet Bulawayo accomplished what she did in novel Glory, a vivid satire about the unraveling of a dictatorship inspired by George Orwell's Animal Farm and by the oral traditions of Zimbabwe. At turns bitterly ironic, hilariously absurd, and painfully violent, this novel features Old Horse, the ruler of Jidada, and the story of the coup that tore him from his seat.
It parodies the structures of fear, silence, toxic masculinity and patriarchy, hero worship, performative change, and more, that keep oppressive governments running, to devastating effect. The allegory never hesitates, richly showing us the revision and sanitizing of the past, and the powerful role that speaking out and sharing the truths of the country’s history play in dissolving an atmosphere held together by silence and denial. The love for a country and people—the way towards successful uprising and confrontation—it's all there.
Bulawayo's story ranges across narrators and characters, from the Old Horse himself to a youth named Destiny who comes back to her mother, Simiso, after years of living abroad; she confronts the changes that have come to her country and the way the women around her are rebelling against the regime. The changes, the disillusionment and pain, the passive horrors—Bulawayo captures them all with a daring narrative that shouldn't flow as well as it does.
Readers will have to accept that they won't know all non-English words. You'll be fine. The one I'll share is "Tholukuthi," which starts many of the paragraphs—based on my research and context I believe it means "to discover," "to find," and so it serves in this story, which reads as narration, as oral tradition, to introduce almost: "You find that," as in "Tholukuthi this book comes out in March, and it's time to put it on hold at your local library."
Glory was one of my most anticipated books of 2021, and I feel strongly that I was right to be so excited about it. It uses magical realism, allegory, tweets, and more to create a compelling and vividly true-feeling novel about a revolution, that surprised me again and again, and brought me to tears in its final pages.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Content warnings for sex shaming, rape culture, and rape; genocide and ethnic cleansing; police brutality and shooting; violence, gore, body horror; political repression.
It parodies the structures of fear, silence, toxic masculinity and patriarchy, hero worship, performative change, and more, that keep oppressive governments running, to devastating effect. The allegory never hesitates, richly showing us the revision and sanitizing of the past, and the powerful role that speaking out and sharing the truths of the country’s history play in dissolving an atmosphere held together by silence and denial. The love for a country and people—the way towards successful uprising and confrontation—it's all there.
Bulawayo's story ranges across narrators and characters, from the Old Horse himself to a youth named Destiny who comes back to her mother, Simiso, after years of living abroad; she confronts the changes that have come to her country and the way the women around her are rebelling against the regime. The changes, the disillusionment and pain, the passive horrors—Bulawayo captures them all with a daring narrative that shouldn't flow as well as it does.
Readers will have to accept that they won't know all non-English words. You'll be fine. The one I'll share is "Tholukuthi," which starts many of the paragraphs—based on my research and context I believe it means "to discover," "to find," and so it serves in this story, which reads as narration, as oral tradition, to introduce almost: "You find that," as in "Tholukuthi this book comes out in March, and it's time to put it on hold at your local library."
Glory was one of my most anticipated books of 2021, and I feel strongly that I was right to be so excited about it. It uses magical realism, allegory, tweets, and more to create a compelling and vividly true-feeling novel about a revolution, that surprised me again and again, and brought me to tears in its final pages.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
Content warnings for sex shaming, rape culture, and rape; genocide and ethnic cleansing; police brutality and shooting; violence, gore, body horror; political repression.
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