Focus titles zoomed 1800×1200

Reading lists

9 Vintage Paperback Novels to Add to Your Summer TBR Pile

Vintage-14.11.221534

Powerful stories that make great gifts

We Need New Names

We Need New Names is a "before" and "after" kind of novel, the kind that marks a new beginning, a new shift in the African literary tradition . . . To me, it is a complete novel in terms of aesthetics and politics

NOVIOLET BULAWAYO grew up in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. When she was eighteen, she moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her first novel, We Need New Names, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Guardian First Book Award and the Barnes &amp; Noble Discover Award, and won a Betty Trask Award, Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, Hurston-Wright Legacy Award, the Etisalat Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction. She has also won the Caine Prize for African Writing and a National Book Award's '5 Under 35'. NoViolet earned her MFA at Cornell University, and was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, where she taught fiction. She currently writes full-time, from wherever she finds herself.

'There are times, though, that no matter how much food I eat, I find the food does nothing for me, like I am hungry for my country and nothing is going to fix that' 
 
This is the story of Darling, uprooted from her family home by paramilitary police, and living in a Zimbabwean shanty called Paradise. Despite the turmoil, she revels in mischief and adventures with her friends, like stealing guavas from the rich neighbourhood, and singing Lady Gaga at the top of her voice. 
 
But when Darling has a chance to forge a different life in America, she realises that this new paradise brings its own set of challenges. In We Need New Names a spirited girl grows into a powerful observer of global identity. 
 
Meet ten of literature's most iconic heroines, jacketed in bold portraits by female photographers from around the world.

NoViolet Bulawayo

Allegory, satire and fairytale rolled into one mighty punch

Few writers can engineer a sentence like NoViolet Bulawayo

Bulawayo is really out-Orwelling Orwell. This is a satire with sharper teeth, angrier, and also very, very funny

Glory revels in the absurd but offers a terrifying vision of political disintegration for readers today

An urgent and engaging meditation on the farce of totalitarianism and the struggle of those who live under it to forge something better

Glory is a witty and moving tribute to the people of Zimbabwe and their history

Bulawayo broaches what it means to fight for democracy and call somewhere home in a timely and imaginative way . . . A memorable, funny and yet serious allegory about a country's plight under tyranny and what individual and collective freedom means in an age of virtual worlds and political soundbites

It delivers, over the course of 400 pages of wordplay and animal magic, a surprisingly warm, intimate and, yes, human feeling

You thought you were getting a novel as good as We Need New Names . . . Glory is even more dazzling . . . Calls to mind other great storytellers such as Herta Müller, Elif Shafak and Zimbabwean compatriot Yvonne Vera

Bulawayo's tale of dictatorship and oppression explores the exaltation and downfall of a would-be savior

The 50 Most Anticipated Books of 2022, Oprah Daily

Robert Mugabe is there in all but name in this striking allegory - an Animal Farm that shows how narratives of liberation and self-determination curdle under a dictator's power

Fiction to Look Out For in 2022, Guardian

Based loosely on the events following former Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe's 2017 fall from power, the various dazzling voices of this novel will draw you deep into its ambitious and mystifying heart

Bulawayo keenly displays the perspectives of political players and the civilians who bear the brunt of their violence. With satire that feels necessary and urgent, Bulawayo brings clarity to a murky political morass

From the author of We Need New Names, and inspired by the fall of Robert Mugabe, a parable of oppression and revolution told through the animal kingdom

Bulawayo says that, while writing non-fiction about the coup, she found herself constantly returning to George Orwell's Animal Farm . . . In Zimbabwe, where people are ascribed a totem from birth, usually an animal, the device works perfectly

Glory is a witty and moving tribute to the people of Zimbabwe and their history

She writes in exuberant, looping sentences and wittily experiments with form, incorporating elements of social media... an urgent and engaging meditation on the farce of totalitarianism and the struggle of those who live under it to forge something better

A story which, bravely, speaks truth to power

NoViolet Bulawayo speaks truth to power with verve, employing her own lexicon and memorably vivid, often hilarious imagery

This Booker-nominated tale is the uplifting and original book you're looking for.

I find NoViolet Bulawayo's writing profoundly salient and her novel Glory is a masterpiece for our times. Gripping and exhilarating

A powerful satire of political corruption... With its vivid storytelling and biting caricatures...Glory is a scathing and uproarious rebuke to tyranny

**SHORTLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2022** 
 
Shortlisted for the Booker, an exhilarating Animal Farm-inspired novel about power and corruption set in an animal nation trapped in a cycle as old as time, by one of the most exciting voices writing today 
 
'Bulawayo is really out-Orwelling Orwell. This is a satire with sharper teeth, angrier, and also very, very funny' New York Times Book Review 
 
'Glory is a masterpiece for our times. Gripping and exhilarating' Observer 
 
Narrated by a vivid chorus of animal voices that unveil the tyranny and ruthlessness required to uphold absolute power, Glory is the tale of an uprising and a country's implosion. And at the centre of it all, a young goat named Destiny, returning home to bear witness to a revolution. 
 
Urgent, wild, dazzling with life and an irrepressible wit, Glory is a razor-sharp satire that unpicks power and shows how history can be halted in a moment. 
 
** SHORTLISTED FOR THE RATHBONES FOLIO PRIZE 2023**

NoViolet Bulawayo

Praise for Glory

Allegory, satire and fairytale rolled into one mighty punch

Brave, and moving

Vital and universal

Allegory, satire and fairytale rolled into one mighty punch

Brave, and moving

Vital and universal

Allegory, satire and fairytale rolled into one mighty punch

Brave, and moving

Vital and universal

Books by NoViolet Bulawayo

Articles featuring NoViolet Bulawayo

9 Vintage Paperback Novels to Add to Your Summer TBR Pile

Powerful stories that make great gifts

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter