Zimbabwe: Book On Mugabe's Fall Out in March
A NOVEL, Glory, that captures the removal of the now-late strongman, Robert Mugabe from office, is set for release next March.
The book was penned by the award-winning author of the Booker-prize finalist We Need New Names, NoViolet Bulawayo, and is inspired by the fall of Mugabe as president in November 2017 after nearly 40 years in office.
According to the publisher, Penguin Random House, is 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 centres around the unexpected fall of Old Horse, a long-serving leader of a fictional country, and the drama that follows for a disorderly 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 readers in the daily life of a traumatised nation, revealing the dazzling life force and irrepressible wit that lies barely concealed beneath the surface of seemingly bleak circumstances.
"At the centre of this tumult is Destiny, who has returned to Jidada from exile to bear witness to revolution-and 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 fairy tales that define cultures the world over-unmasks the surreality of contemporary global politics to help us understand our world more clearly, even as Bulawayo plucks us right out of it.
"Glory is a blockbuster, an exhilarating ride, and crystalises a turning point in history with the texture and nuance that only the greatest of fiction can."
A US-based news publication, Boston said Glory was among 23 books, avid readers should look forward to reading this year.
"This novel is another to add to the list in 2022. The story, inspired by the 2017 fall of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, is about the demise of an oppressive regime and the chaos of revolution, presented in an 'uncannily recognizable anthropomorphic allegory,'" Boston said.
"In her bold, vividly imagined novel, animal voices call out the dangerous absurdity of contemporary global politics. So it's a totally original rendering of the illusory and transient character of power."
NoViolet Bulawayo is the pen name of Elizabeth Zandile Tshele, a Zimbabwean author and Stegner Fellow at Stanford University in the US.
This article originally appeared on New Zimbabwe
Photo: New Zimbabwe