ISBN 9781946395412 | paperback | $16.95 | publication date Jan 2021
“On the third of September, not so long ago, something truly wondrous happened on the Beauford Farm and Estate. At the moment of her death, Imogen Zula Nyoni – Genie – was seen to fly away on a giant pair of silver wings, and, at the very same moment, her heart calcified into the most precious and beautiful something the onlookers had ever seen.”
As Imogen Zula Nyoni, aka Genie, lies in a coma at Mater Dei Hospital, her family and friends struggle to come to terms with her impending death. This is the story of Genie, who has gifts that transcend time and space. With the lightest of touches, and with an overlay of magical-realist beauty, this novel sketches, through the lives of a few families and the fate of a single patch of ground, decades of national history (a country in Southern Africa that is never named) – from colonial occupation through the freedom struggle, to the devastation wrought by the sojas, the HIV virus, and The Man Himself.
At turns mysterious and magical, but always honest, The Theory of Flight explores the many ways we lose those we love before they die. When it was published in South Africa, the novel was awarded the Barry Ronge Fiction Prize.
Reviews
Windham-Campbell Prize Recipient, 2022
“Ndlovu’s deeply moving and complex novel is astonishing for the amount of hope it evokes despite the darkness that’s so pervasive in Genie’s world, where she creates her own reality in order to survive. This transcendent and powerful testament to the indomitable human spirit is not to be missed.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“An unnamed country in the southern part of Africa springs to life in this delicate work of magical realism. […] The Theory of Flight is unlike anything you’ve read before.” — Bustle
“When we want to base our shared reality with each other on facts, we also must allow, acknowledge, and cherish the existence of magic. The Theory of Flight is full of magic, a magic willing to be observed by eyes that can see the beauty in knowledge, facts and far beyond.” — Full Stop Magazine
“[The Theory of Flight] strikes what feels like an impossible balance—splitting its attention between how history defines lives and how lives, nonetheless, exceed such historical definition … it exemplifies the most textured work emerging from the region.” — Jeanne-Marie Jackson, Public Books
“When I reached the final pages of Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu’s The Theory of Flight, I recognized that I had read something truly rare: an intelligent novel with a big heart.” —The Rupture
“The Theory of Flight begins and ends in the same place, on the banks of the Zambezi River, as a herd of elephants appear. But they are elephants in motion, wading across the waters that run through the territory they inhabit. They do not stake their claim, rather, they find their place. For both Genie’s father, Golide Gumede, and Krystle, these animals—whose famously long memories make them perfect metonyms for keeping history—reveal an esoteric and highly localized ecology of peace. In all their grandeur, the elephants beckon to “a knowing . . . of your place in the world . . . that in the grander scheme of things you are but a speck . . . There is freedom, beauty even, in that kind of knowledge. . . . It is the kind of knowledge that allows you to fly. You have to experience it for yourself” —Modern Fiction Studies
“This epic novel weaves magical realism and myth in the life story of Imogen “Genie” Zula Nyoni (who is HIV positive) and her South African family history, including wars, poverty, colonization, love and race.” —POZ Magazine
“Incandescent and wryly largehearted, The Theory of Flight is a tale of epic scope. Ndlovu’s unique and beautifully composed debut confirms her right away as that rare phenomenon: a born storyteller with a poet’s ear. Beguiling, brilliant and brave.” —Masande Ntshanga, author of Triangulum
“The Theory of Flight is a prodigious, time-stopping concerto that decisively places Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu on the global stage. A writer to watch.” —NoViolet Bulawayo, author of We Need New Names
“An epic novel written with such wit and ingenuity. I was unable to put this book down, in awe of Ndlovu and her stunning virtuoso, the ways she brings these unforgettable characters into a magical world with such delightful of prose. Beautiful and utterly sublime. My novel of the year.” — Novuyo Tshuma, author of House of Stone
“Here is a story of the most beautiful liberation struggle, a quest to inhabit the wilds of the imagination. Ndlovu peels back the shroud of despair that haunts Zimbabwe forty years after independence, to look with rare empathy at the inner lives of characters we would more likely pity or fear than love. Told with a potent blend of historical detail, magical realism and the matter-of-factness of those who live close to death, this reverse Icarus fable dares imagine that no matter how humble, any person of courage, conviction and radical tolerance can soar into true freedom.”— Tsitsi Jaji, author of Mother Tongues
“A triumphant story told in a magical way.” — LitNet (South Africa)
“A dazzling novel of delicate and astonishing magic. The Theory of Flight is a joyful tapestry of characters shaped but never deformed by the tensions of the times they traverse, narrated in prose of devastatingly beautiful simplicity.” Tsitsi Dangarembga, author of Nervous Conditions and This Mournable Body
“With the lightest of touches, a cast of unforgettable characters, and moments of surreal beauty, The Theory of Flight sketches decades of history in this unnamed Southern African nation. It does not dwell on what has been lost in its war, but on the daily triumphs of its people, the necessity of art, and the power of its visionaries to take flight.” — Tropics Magazine
The Author
Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu is a writer, filmmaker and academic who holds a PhD in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University, as well as master’s degrees in African Studies and Film. She has published research on Saartjie Baartman and she wrote, directed and edited the award-winning short film Graffiti. Born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe, she worked as a teacher in Johannesburg before returning to Bulawayo. The Theory of Flight is her first novel and won the Barry Ronge Fiction Prize in South Africa. In 2022, Siphiwe was awarded a Windham-Campbell Prize for Fiction.
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