After the publication of We Need New Names in 2013, Zimbabwean author NoViolet Bulawayo set out to write a non-fiction novel about Zimbabwe's former dictator, Robert Mugabe, who resigned in 2017 after nearly 40 years in power. But Bulawayo, who had a deep and sad connection to the material, decided that the book that would become Glory would work better as a fiction book.
Bulawayo credits the story for Glory to her "upbringing, my upbringing on my grandmother's folktales, stories of animals," as well as George Orwell's Animal Farm and her own experiences. Nominally, the novel tells the story of a nation on the verge of collapse after a leader. In the novel, the Old Horse rules the nation (and his subjects, other animals) as a dictator and with an iron fist. Beneath the surface, however, the novel explores the relationship between a leader and his people, as well as the dictatorship of the aforementioned Mugabe, and how people react to hard times.
And though Bulawayo was born and raised in Zimbabwe, she came to the United States for college. With that distance, she said in an interview, she was able to gain what she called "perspective" on her country and its people. She uses different kinds of animals to represent different kinds of people. Larger animals, she said, represented "the powerful," while animals like goats, sheep, and chickens represented "ordinary," everyday people.
