Shortlisted for The Booker Prize 2022
Shortlisted for the Rathbones Folio Prize 2023
Longlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction 2023
Glory is an energy burst,an exhilarating joyride. It is the story of an uprising,told by a bold,vivid chorus of animal voices that helps us see our human world more clearly.
A long time ago,in a bountiful land not so far away,the animal denizens lived quite happily. Then the colonisers arrived. After nearly a hundred years,a bloody War of Liberation brought new hope for the animals - along with a new leader. A charismatic horse who commanded the sun and ruled and ruled and kept on ruling. For forty years he ruled,with the help of his elite band of Chosen Ones,a scandalously violent pack of Defenders and,as he aged,his beloved and ambitious young donkey wife,Marvellous.
But even the sticks and stones know there is no night ever so long it does not end with dawn. And so it did for the Old Horse,one day as he sat down to his Earl Grey tea and favourite radio programme. A new regime,a new leader. Or apparently so. And once again,the animals were full of hope...
Glory tells the story of a country seemingly trapped in a cycle as old as time. And yet,as it unveils the myriad tricks required to uphold the illusion of absolute power,it reminds us that the glory of tyranny only lasts as long as its victims are willing to let it. History can be stopped in a moment. With the return of a long-lost daughter,a #freefairncredibleelection,a turning tide - even a single bullet.
Publisher: Vintage PublishingISBN: 9781529114225Number of pages: 416Weight: 287 gDimensions: 198 x 129 x 25 mm
MEDIA REVIEWS
'Spellbinding... this social media-saturated narrative,interwoven with the oral storytelling techniques of idiomatic speech and call and response,makes Bulawayo feel like a pioneer... Glory,with a flicker of hope at its end,is allegory,satire and fairytale rolled into one mighty punch'- Sarah Ladipo Manyika,Guardian
'A brilliant,400-page post-colonial fable... Bulawayo is really out-Orwelling Orwell. This is a satire with sharper teeth,angrier,and also very,very funny... this is also a satire in which female characters are not pushed to the margins,but hold he story together... Bulawayo dares us,and the citizens of all Jidadas everywhere,to reimagine what our nations could someday become'- Violet Kupersmith,New York Times Book Review
'An acerbic,precise,heart-rending and hilarious analysis of tyranny'- Scotsman
'Vital and universal'- Hepzibah Anderson,Observer
'Bulawayo broaches what it means to fight for democracy and call somewhere home in a timely and imaginative way...a memorable,funny and yet serious allegory about a country's plight under tyranny and what individual and collective freedom means in an age of virtual worlds and political soundbites'- Franklin Nelson,Financial Times
'Playing with language is the key to unlocking the literary metaverse of Glory,which is about personalising a very public story... it's inescapably funny that the animals in Glory are contemporary human-style beings... Bulawayo's dense,mischievous fable is ultimately optimistic. Funny ha ha and peculiar,it delivers,over the course of 400 pages of wordplay and animal magic,a surprisingly warm,intimate and,yes,human feeling'- Melissa Katsoulis,The Times
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