Zimbabwean author Noviolet Bulawayo has a new novel coming out, reports Lithub. The novel is titled Glory and is set for a March 8, 2022 publication by Viking. The cover is stunning, and the story is, well, fascinating.

Glory comes 8 years after Bulawayo’s debut novel stunned the world with some of the most memorable characters. According to Viking, the novel is “a blockbuster novel about the fall of an oppressive regime and the chaos of revolution, presented as an uncannily recognizable anthropomorphic allegory—and inspired by the 2017 fall of Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe. In Bulawayo’s bold, vividly imagined novel, a chorus of animal voices calls out the dangerous absurdity of contemporary global politics, and helps us see our human world more clearly.”

Telling stories through animal characters places Bulawayo among a growing body of contemporary African writers centering narratives around animals, writers like Yamen Manai in The Ardent Swarm, Mohamedou Slahi in The Actual True Story of Ahmed and Zarga, and Veronique Tadjo in In The Company of Men.

Laura Tisdel, Executive Editor at Viking suggests that readers who fell in love with Bulawayo’s debut We Need New Names will not be disappointed. ‘With Glory,” she remarks, “Bulawayo’s inimitable voice on the page, as well as her ability to reflect our contemporary circumstances in an utterly original way through fiction, deliver an ambitious, conceptually thrilling, gut-punch of a novel.”

Congrats to Bulawayo! Read the synopsis below and hit the pre-order link here.

Glory is an energy burst, an exhilarating ride. A bold, vivid chorus of animal voices calls out the dangerous absurdity of contemporary global politics, and 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.