NoViolet Bulawayo Allegorizes the Aftermath of Robert Mugabe

GLORY
By NoViolet Bulawayo

Early on in NoViolet Bulawayo’s manifoldly intelligent new novel, “Glory,” she utterly removes the vocabulary of “folks” from the story and the language of its characters, who’re all animals. The e book is ready in Jidada, a fictional African nation that may be understood as a type of fantasia of Zimbabwe within the interval between the 2017 army overthrow of its president, Robert Mugabe, and his demise two years later. It’s a sensible, 400-page postcolonial fable charting the downfall of 1 tyrant — whose counterpart right here is an aged horse — and the rise of a brand new one.

The opposite inhabitants of Jidada are pigs and cows, goats and sheep, cats and canine, chickens and the odd peacock. There’s a very massive and symbol-laden crocodile who remembers the real-life nicknames given to Mugabe’s human substitute, Emmerson Mnangagwa, and likewise to the South African prime minister P. W. Botha, a supporter of apartheid. There aren’t any males or ladies in “Glory”; there isn’t a personhood in any respect, solely “mals” and “femals.” Issues which can be saved non-public are “persomal” issues. Quadrupedal animals change freely between transferring on 4 legs and two, and after they go for the latter it’s termed “hinding.” That is an allegory that operates fully by itself phrases, with its personal ingenious lexicon. By taking people out of the equation, Bulawayo eliminates the hierarchies that their presence would impose. She has succeeded in creating the anti-“Babar.”

And whereas there are definitely parallels between the creatures of Jidada and Orwell’s chronicles of Snowball, Napoleon, Boxer and firm, within the very first chapter “Glory” cautions towards decoding the e book solely via comparisons to “Animal Farm.” Throughout a speech delivered to the group gathered for Independence Day celebrations, Dr. Candy Mom, a donkey in Gucci heels and the equine equal of the ousted chief’s spouse, Grace Mugabe, pronounces:

“I’m standing right here to handle this nonsense proper right here proper now, with Jidada itself and this solar over there as my witnesses, and I’m saying: This isn’t an animal farm however Jidada with a -da and one other -da! So my recommendation to you is, Cease it, and Cease it proper now!”

Although a part of a litany geared toward Tuvy, her political rival, Dr. Candy Mom’s phrases are too specific to not be a warning for the reader. Right here and once more, when Dr. Candy Mom gleefully watches the YouTube video of her personal speech, we hear it straight from the donkey’s mouth: This isn’t “Animal Farm.” Not its remix, nor its translation. “Glory” is its personal vivid world, drawn from its personal folklore.