House of Stone

Reviews

"Be prepared to laugh, shed tears, and marvel." — Yiyun Li, Vanity Fair

"A gripping account of revolution and its aftermath." — Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of The Sympathizer

"Ambitious and ingenious." — Dinaw Mengestu, New York Times Book Review

"House of Stone is the novel devastated Zimbabwe needed to have written. Now Novuyo Tshuma has written it. Bayethe to her scintillating talent! In the most original and fearless prose I’ve read in years, Tshuma’s scheming narrator, Zamani, reveals the personal and political disintegration that was Zimbabwe’s undoing." — Tsitsi Dangarembga, author of Nervous Conditions

"House of Stone is that rare thing, a truly original work of art whose author’s risk-taking pays off on the page. Zamani is a complex, compelling, and ambiguous narrator. Utterly stunning." — Tendai Huchu, author of The Maestro, the Magistrate and the Mathematician

"Tshuma’s House of Stone is a devastating and inviting piece of fiction that is earning its raves as a beyond notable first novel.… Her book slips like sand through fingers through time and voice, masterfully condensing the history of Zimbabwe to the point where the back story is informative and provocative but not cumbersome.… Tshuma deftly tells a story of colonization and decolonization both with a wide focus on the nation and the tight focus on a few people. The latter serves as a tragic microcosm of the former.… Her balance between the tightest and broadest focus is admirable and efficient." — Andrew Dansby, Houston Chronicle

"To call [House of Stone] clever or ambitious is to do it a disservice—it is both, but also more than that.… Tshuma is incapable of writing a boring sentence.… By the end she has managed to not only sum up Zimbabwean history, but also all of African colonial history: from devastating colonialism to the bitter wars of independence to the euphoria of self-rule and the disillusionment of the present. It is an extraordinary achievement for a first novel." — Helon Habila, author of Oil on Water, for the Guardian

"An enthralling novel that has it all: pathos, humour, and an insightful engagement with the history of Zimbabwe. With audacious style, Tshuma manages to step over the pitfalls that would swallow a lesser talent, and in so doing announces herself as a huge talent." — Brian Chikwava, author of Harare North

"Novuyo Rosa Tshuma’s epic satire House of Stone (2018) is driven by one Zamani’s almost pathological desire to replace the missing son of the Mlambo family. In Tshuma’s beautiful interweaving of personal and national history, we learn of successive generations burdened by sins of their fathers." — Panashe Chigumadzi, Guardian

"Reading House of Stone is like being punched in the stomach and tickled at the same time." — Ranka Primorac, author of The Place of Tears