Glory

Set in the fictional African nation of Jidada, a political allegory populated entirely by animal characters, the novel traces the fall of a decades-old dictatorship, the rise of an equally brutal successor regime, and the citizens' long struggle for genuine liberation. Jidada closely mirrors the political history of Zimbabwe, and the Ndebele expression tholukuthi, meaning "that is to say," recurs throughout as a narrative refrain.

The story opens at an Independence Day rally where citizens have waited hours in the blazing sun for the Father of the Nation, an ancient horse who has ruled for nearly four decades. Armed Defenders, the dogs who make up Jidada's military and police, prevent anyone from leaving. When the Old Horse arrives, he is so frail and confused he does not know where he is; his wife, Dr. Sweet Mother, an ambitious donkey also known as Marvelous, orients him. Prophet Dr. O. G. Moses, a charismatic pig who leads a major evangelical church, delivers a prayer framing obedience to the regime as divine mandate. The Old Horse delivers a rambling speech denouncing Britain's possession of the head of Mbuya Nehanda, a revered resistance hero executed during colonial rule, and blaming the West for Jidada's problems. When the Sisters of the Disappeared storm the stage with placards naming citizens who vanished under the regime, Defenders beat them and drag them away. In a moment of dementia-fueled candor, the Old Horse tells the crowd that once the governed lose their fear, "it's absolutely game over." The Seat of Power, Jidada's ruling elite, is alarmed; Vice President Tuvius Delight Shasha, known as Tuvy, orders him removed. Dr. Sweet Mother takes the stage, publicly humiliates Tuvy, and demonstrates a startling power: She commands the sun to obey her, signaling her ambition to rule. Tuvy absorbs the humiliation with the stillness of "a crocodile under water."

As the Old Horse succumbed to dementia, his loosened tongue disclosed that his dead comrades all died unnaturally because they threatened his power. Rather than being disillusioned, Sweet Mother was radicalized: If these incompetent beasts could rule, so could she. She obtained a PhD through a single phone call, built a faction of young allies called the Future Circle, and waged war against rivals with her devastating rhetorical gifts. Her pursuit of power violates what she calls Jidada's "patriarchal organism," which decrees that a ruler must have fought in the Liberation War (the independence struggle that brought the regime to power), be an elder male, and belong to a particular ethnicity. She meets none of these criteria but wields the Old Horse's devotion as her weapon.

The power struggle escalates as Sweet Mother tries repeatedly to kill Tuvy through car accidents, kidnapping attempts, and supernatural attacks. Tuvy survives through the protection of his sorcerer, Jolijo, who provides talismans and fortification rites. After the Old Horse formally expels Tuvy from the Party of Power, Jidada's ruling political party, Tuvy flees to General Judas Goodness Reza, a pit bull and decorated veteran, and finds a secret meeting of Generals planning a coup. They send Tuvy into exile while they prepare.

The citizens of Jidada, narrating collectively, wake to the news that the Old Horse has been taken hostage by his own Defenders. Their joy is complicated: they celebrate, then weep as they remember decades of rigged elections, torture, and the disappeared. Taken incognito to the streets, the Old Horse witnesses massive crowds calling for his ouster. He commands the sun to blacken; for the first time, it refuses. He signs a resignation letter he did not write, and the news ignites celebration.

Prophet Dr. O. G. Moses endorses Tuvy as Jidada's "God-sent Savior." This scene is observed by two elderly friends from the township of Lozikeyi: Mother of God, a devout sheep, and the Duchess of Lozikeyi, a skeptical cat and spirit medium who practices indigenous religion. The Duchess is outraged by the Prophet's sermon blaming femals, the novel's term for female animals, for the nation's downfall. Following his inauguration, Tuvy declares a "New Dispensation," promising free elections and prosperity. At a private dinner, he boasts about the Gukurahundi, the early-1980s military campaign in which a North Korean-trained unit massacred tens of thousands of Ndebele civilians. He dismisses the label "genocide," calling it "service," and warns he will not hesitate to serve again.

Into this atmosphere arrives Destiny Lozikeyi Khumalo, a young goat returning to Lozikeyi after a decade of exile in the United States, having never contacted her mother, Simiso. The Duchess recognizes Destiny from her resemblance to Simiso and summons the neighborhood. Elders deliver devastating news: after Destiny's disappearance, Simiso lost her grip on reality, roaming Jidada with a photograph, asking strangers if they had seen her daughter.

On election day, Lozikeyi votes with soaring hope, intending to install Opposition leader Goodwill Beta. During the overnight wait, red butterflies lead the community to the Duchess's garden, where a spirit delivers a message from the Gukurahundi dead demanding justice. The New Dispensation victory song then confirms Tuvy's win. The community marches in fury to the House of Jidada, only to find the same symbols of power with Tuvy's face replacing the Old Horse's. Defenders respond with lethal force.

Meanwhile, Simiso returns miraculously during a prayer session and reunites with Destiny. Unable to sleep one night, Simiso tells the story she has never told: On April 18, 1983, Gukurahundi Defenders murdered her entire family in their village of Bulawayo. Her father, Butholezwe Henry Vulindlela Khumalo, a prosperous farmer and Liberation War veteran, was shot and taken away, never to be seen again. Her mother and siblings were burned alive. Simiso was brutalized, losing hearing in one ear and carrying deep scars. When Simiso undresses to reveal her mutilated body, Destiny removes her own clothes, exposing nearly identical scars from the 2008 election violence, when Tuvy led the campaign to crush the Opposition's victory. Mother and daughter recognize that the same regime inscribed both sets of scars.

Under Tuvy's rule, Jidada deteriorates. Crushing queues return for fuel, food, and money. Power cuts invert daily life. Dr. Future Fengu, a UK-educated doctor suspended without pay for demanding better conditions, dies by suicide. When the government announces a massive fuel price hike, citizens pour into the streets; Defenders respond with beatings, rapes, and gunfire. Tuvy renames every street after himself, declares himself President for Life, suspends basic rights, and bans the Opposition. A monstrous Crocodile, first spotted by children during the election, terrorizes the nation.

Destiny drives to the ghost village of Bulawayo, talks to the dead, and discovers a pen behind her ear identical to those her grandfather wrote with. Over seven days, she produces a manuscript titled The Red Butterflies of Jidada, dedicated "For the dead, who are not dead." At a Remembrance event, she reads from the book onstage. Commander Jambanja, the regime's most feared enforcer, shoots her through the heart. She finishes her passage, says "thank you," and drops dead.

Golden Maseko, a neighborhood painter and Destiny's love interest, paints red butterflies and the names of the Khumalo dead on Simiso's wall. Jidadans add their own names, creating the "Wall of the Dead." When Defenders come to arrest Simiso, a calm, silent mob destroys them.

At an all-night vigil, the community confesses its complicity in enabling the regime and envisions a new Jidada. When battalions of Defenders arrive the next morning, they confront a fearless crowd prepared to die. One by one, the Defenders strip off their uniforms and join the citizens. Across the nation, Defenders follow suit, and the institution collapses. Citizens storm the House of Power; red butterflies swarm Tuvy until he falls. In Lozikeyi, Comrade Nevermiss Nzinga, an elderly female Liberation War veteran, kills the Crocodile with her gun. Tuvy and the ruling elite are imprisoned.

The Old Horse dies in a foreign hospital. In the afterlife, a guide reveals that the nation weeps not for his passing but for what he did to them, and that there is no heaven for tyrants. Back in Lozikeyi, children dictate to Golden Maseko the design of a new flag: an eternal lotus fire containing all colors of justice, peace, and integrity, with the Nehanda tree and its bone-shaped pods so future generations remember to rise. The flag is hoisted by the Wall of the Dead, and the dead themselves, led by Destiny, attend unseen. Everyone feels the warmth of the flag's fire and hears a new anthem, one that speaks of "the kind of glory that burns eternal and glows with living light."