SEXTANT: masculinities, sexualities & decolonialities

ABSTRACT

The article explores the extent to which social media operates as a metanarrative in NoViolet Bulawayo’s (2022) novel, Glory. Breaking free from rigid literary etiquette to use the storytelling habits and concerns of the world as a mise en scène, the  Zimbabwean transnational writer has embraced various media tools in her novel. Within a transmedia space, Bulawayo has succeeded in marrying prose text with social media storytelling, embedding a Twitter narrative conveyed through the voices of characters’ followers and displaying the degree of connectedness of characters who use social media platforms for different purposes. This analysis focuses on the role of Twitter and YouTube in the novel. Glory, emerging in the gatehouse of Afropolitan literature, illustrates the African experience in a new world overwhelmed by such evolving communication technologies. The social media-addicted and digitally wired characters use these platforms to feed and express their grandiose narcissism in the sociopolitical sphere, or else challenge and vilify the dictatorial regime, which itself operationalises these communication technologies as warheads or political propaganda, numbing people’s minds by purveying inaccurate information. This article analyses these features of the novel to argue that, through her intermedial approach, Bulawayo speaks truth to power, holding up a mirror to society in contemporary Zimbabwe and across the world.

KEY WOrDS

social media, narcissism, storytelling, NoViolet Bulawayo, tweet novel, panegyrics

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.