Showcasing African Gothic at its finest, this hypnotic novel tangles together classic texts of madness and female rebellion alongside elements of the jingoistic novels of Victorian adventurer H. Rider Haggard. The result is an extraordinary reinvention of colonial and patriarchal perspectives.

The unnamed narrator spins a web back through a century of colonial possession – political, spiritual and mental – to imagine the stories of conquest and captivity, control and disruption, from the perspective of the women and men ‘half-broken’ by the stigmas attached to race and mental illness. Equally ‘half-broken’ are those dehumanised by their insane greed for dominion and treasure.

With trademark compassion and complexity, Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu balances the humanity of her characters against the cruelty of empire, making for a spellbinding and literally haunting account of love and magic.

This is indeed a story of mercy - and the redemption it offers.

On the eve of his retirement, Spokes Moloi, a police officer of spotless integrity, investigates one final crime: the possible murder of Emil Coetzee, head of the sinister Organisation of Domestic Affairs, who disappears on the same day a ceasefire is declared and the country's independence beckons. In following the tangled threads of Coetzee's life, Spokes raises and resolves conundrums that have haunted him, and his country, for decades under colonial rule. In all this, he is staunchly supported by his paragon spouse, Loveness, and his unofficially adopted daughter, the unorthodox postman Dikiledi.

In her most magnificent novel yet, award-winning author Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu showcases the history of a country transitioning from a colonial to a postcolonial state with a deft touch and a compassionate eye for poignant detail. Linked to The Theory of Flight and The History of Man, Ndlovu's novel nevertheless stands alone in its evocation of life in the City of Kings and surrounding villages. Dickensian in its scope, with the proverbial bustling cast of colleagues both good and bad, villagers, guerrillas, neighbours, ex-soldiers, suburban madams, shopkeepers, would-be politicians and more, The Quality of Mercy proposes that ties of kinship and affiliation can never be completely broken - and that love can heal even the most grievous of wounds.

Winner, Outstanding Fiction Book Prize, National Arts Merit Awards (Zimbabwe)From 2022 Windham Campbell Prize winner Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, the breathtaking conclusion to her multiple award-winning City of Kings trilogy, including The Theory of Flight and The History of Man"Perhaps the most monumental trilogy to come out of Southern Africa."--AfrocritikEveryone saw Emil Coetzee drive into the bush the day the ceasefire was announced. Beatrice, busy consoling her friend Kuki over the loss of her son and marriage. Dikeledi, the postwoman who refuses to lean. Tom, the drunk who makes his living impersonating Emil in backroads bars. Vida de Villiers, stuck in a coin-toss choice. Saskia, the feisty reporter determined to ruin Emil's name. Marion, the enigmatic lover he left behind. Mrs. Louisa Alcott, the lonely farm wife reading Mills & Boon romances in her best dress, waiting for her life to begin. But nobody saw him drive out of it. So begins the investigation of Spokes Moloi, the first black chief inspector in the City of Kings, who on the eve of his retirement is handed one final crime: the possible murder of Mr. Coetzee, the notorious head of the Organization of Domestic Affairs, who disappeared on the same day the country's independence beckoned. In investigating Emil's disappearance, Spokes' path collides with an assortment of witnesses with the best and worst of intentions--including a pair of corrupt investigators with an eye towards framing the guerrilla icon Golide Gumede for Emil's murder, and the insatiable public, infatuated with Emil and unable to come to terms with the fact that the future they had so long anticipated had, at last, arrived.With a nation in flux and his beloved wife Loveness forever present in his mind, Spokes' investigation leads him back to the very beginning-- and gives him one last chance to solve the twenty-year-old murder case that determined both the path of his life and destiny of his country.

"This transcendent and powerful testament to the indomitable human spirit is not to be missed." -Publishers Weekly, starred review From 2022 Windham Campbell Prize winner Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu Book 1 in the City of Kings trilogy As Imogen Zula Nyoni, aka Genie, lies in a coma at Mater Dei Hospital after having suffered through a long illness, 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. It is also the story of her forebears - Baines Tikiti, who, because of his wanderlust, changed his name and ended up walking into the Indian Ocean; his son, Livingstone Stanley Tikiti, who, during the war, took as his nom de guerre Golide Gumede and who became obsessed with flight; and Golide's wife, Elizabeth Nyoni, a country-and-western singer self-styled after Dolly Parton, blonde wig and all. 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.

Emil Coetzee, a civil servant in his fifties, is washing blood off his hands when the ceasefire is announced.

Like everyone else, he feels unmoored by the end of the conflict. War had given him his sense of purpose, his identity.

But why has Emil’s life turned out so different from his parents’, who spent cheery Friday evenings flapping and flailing the Charleston or dancing the foxtrot? What happened to the Emil who used to wade through the singing elephant grass of the savannah, losing himself in it? Prize-winning novelist Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu traces Emil’s life from boyhood to manhood – from his days at a privileged boarding school with the motto ‘It is here that boys become the men of history’, to his falling in love with the ever-elusive Marion, whose free-spirited nature has dire consequences for his heart – all the while showing how Emil becomes a man apart.

Set in a southern African country that is never named, this powerful tale of human fallibility – told with empathy, generosity and a light touch – is an excursion into the interiority of the coloniser.