What do you think?
Rate this book
We Need New Names
An exciting literary debut: the unflinching and powerful story of a young girl's journey out of Zimbabwe and to America.
Darling is only ten years old, and yet she must navigate a fragile and violent world. In Zimbabwe, Darling and her friends steal guavas, try to get the baby out of young Chipo's belly, and grasp at memories of Before. Before their homes were destroyed by paramilitary policemen, before the school closed, before the fathers left for dangerous jobs abroad.
But Darling has a chance to escape: she has an aunt in America. She travels to this new land in search of America's famous abundance only to find that her options as an immigrant are perilously few. NoViolet Bulawayo's debut calls to mind the great storytellers of displacement and arrival who have come before her--from Junot Diaz to Zadie Smith to J.M. Coetzee--while she tells a vivid, raw story all her own.
Darling is only ten years old, and yet she must navigate a fragile and violent world. In Zimbabwe, Darling and her friends steal guavas, try to get the baby out of young Chipo's belly, and grasp at memories of Before. Before their homes were destroyed by paramilitary policemen, before the school closed, before the fathers left for dangerous jobs abroad.
But Darling has a chance to escape: she has an aunt in America. She travels to this new land in search of America's famous abundance only to find that her options as an immigrant are perilously few. NoViolet Bulawayo's debut calls to mind the great storytellers of displacement and arrival who have come before her--from Junot Diaz to Zadie Smith to J.M. Coetzee--while she tells a vivid, raw story all her own.
298 pages, Hardcover
First published May 21, 2013
About the author
NoViolet Bulawayo
12 books665 followersNoViolet Bulawayo (pen name of Elizabeth Tshele) is a Zimbabwean author, and Stegner Fellow at Stanford University (2012–2014).
Bulawayo won the 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story "Hitting Budapest," about a gang of street children in a Zimbabwean shantytown.
Her first novel We Need New Names (2013) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, making her the first African female writer to earn this distinction.
She has begun work on a memoir project.
Bulawayo won the 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing for her short story "Hitting Budapest," about a gang of street children in a Zimbabwean shantytown.
Her first novel We Need New Names (2013) was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, making her the first African female writer to earn this distinction.
She has begun work on a memoir project.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,784 reviews
October 16, 2013
This is a book that really grew on me. It starts off following a group of children in Zimbabwe: Darling, Stina, Chipo, Bastard and Godknows, seemingly innocent children living in a not so innocent environment. As a child, Darling and friends lived in shanty towns in Zimbabwe after Mugabe’s paramilitary police bulldozed down their homes. They spent their days stealing guavas,getting into mischief and daydreaming about the typical things African kids do- about eating good food and ultimately becoming rich overseas, in places such as Dubai and the USA.
This story is a sort of coming of age story of Darling. What complicates Darling’s coming of age story is her moving to Detroit, Michigan to live with her aunt.As is typical among Africans (and also non-Africans, of course), an escape to the West may not be what it seems. Added to that,the struggles and sacrifices they've had to make:
“We hid our real names, gave false ones when asked. We built mountains between us and them, we dug rivers, we planted thorns- we had paid so much to be in America and we did not want to lose it all.”
How is life like for an African immigrant in the USA or elsewhere in the West? Bulawayo shows that it’s definitely not a bed of roses. There are so many stressors, including listening to misconceptions about one’s land and cultures and having to quickly adapt to a new culture.Adding to the stress is the fact that there are so many illegal immigrants in the States who feel stressed by the threat of deportation looming over them.
I really liked the book's cross-cultural comparisons of Africa and the USA. The linguistic aspects were the most interesting to me:
“Because we were not in our country, we could not use our own languages, and so when we spoke our voices came out bruised, When we talked, our tongues thrashed madly in our mouths, staggered like drunken men.”
Reading some of the reviews, I’ve noticed that some people felt disconnected from the second half of the story, the part where Darling is in the States. I have to be contrary and say that that was the strongest part to me; it resonated with me the most. Perhaps it is because I have Zimbabwean relatives and I know many African immigrants who have experienced hardships after moving to the States and elsewhere. I know a lot of immigrants who experience depression, mental health issues and alcoholism due to their immigration. I know so many of their stories and I feel that Bulawayo captured them very well.
This story is a sort of coming of age story of Darling. What complicates Darling’s coming of age story is her moving to Detroit, Michigan to live with her aunt.As is typical among Africans (and also non-Africans, of course), an escape to the West may not be what it seems. Added to that,the struggles and sacrifices they've had to make:
“We hid our real names, gave false ones when asked. We built mountains between us and them, we dug rivers, we planted thorns- we had paid so much to be in America and we did not want to lose it all.”
How is life like for an African immigrant in the USA or elsewhere in the West? Bulawayo shows that it’s definitely not a bed of roses. There are so many stressors, including listening to misconceptions about one’s land and cultures and having to quickly adapt to a new culture.Adding to the stress is the fact that there are so many illegal immigrants in the States who feel stressed by the threat of deportation looming over them.
I really liked the book's cross-cultural comparisons of Africa and the USA. The linguistic aspects were the most interesting to me:
“Because we were not in our country, we could not use our own languages, and so when we spoke our voices came out bruised, When we talked, our tongues thrashed madly in our mouths, staggered like drunken men.”
Reading some of the reviews, I’ve noticed that some people felt disconnected from the second half of the story, the part where Darling is in the States. I have to be contrary and say that that was the strongest part to me; it resonated with me the most. Perhaps it is because I have Zimbabwean relatives and I know many African immigrants who have experienced hardships after moving to the States and elsewhere. I know a lot of immigrants who experience depression, mental health issues and alcoholism due to their immigration. I know so many of their stories and I feel that Bulawayo captured them very well.
June 6, 2015
EDIT 10/09/2013:-
Oh boy! This has been included in the shortlist despite my misgivings to the contrary. Heartiest congratulations to NoViolet Bulawayo!
Books like this one have me fumbling around for the right approach to review them, because they try to cram in too much within the scope of a regular sized novel and consequently just stop short of resonating strongly with the reader.
It's like Bulawayo had a message to give me, something potent and fiercely honest enough to burn right through all my prejudices and cherished misconceptions and leave me staring right at all the cold, hard facts. But then halfway into it, her voice went off in various tangential directions in an effort to tackle too many issues at one go and lost most of its intensity.
As a result the message that she had set out to deliver, gave off the impression of poor phrasing and ended up sounding half-hearted and rather dubious.
If I try my absolute best, I can only delineate this as a search for identity, a raw account of coming to terms with the after-effects of displacement. Or an attempt at summarizing in a few hundred pages the feelings of being neither here nor there.
But then Bulawayo let me know so much more. She told me about the experiences of surviving on a few stolen guavas, walking barefoot on the burning asphalt of the dusty road and yet enjoying the smug satisfaction of playing 'Find Bin Laden' with equally destitute and miserable kids of your age. And what it feels like to flee from and forget the tattered remains of a land you were born in simply because it could not offer you the promise of a fulfilling life ahead anymore - a land torn apart by strife, ethnic violence and unstable, unsympathetic governments. The irony of silently selling away your dignity in a foreign country in exchange for a life better than what your own motherland could afford to bestow upon you. The feeling of being swept up in the vortex of too many rapidly occurring changes as an illegal immigrant and the utter hopelessness of never really belonging anywhere.
Bulawayo may not be capable of subtlety or stringing beautiful words together into lengthy sentences fraught with imagery, but she has a compelling and unique voice of her own nonetheless.
I will surely look out for her other works in the future.
**A 3.5 stars that could not be rounded off to a 4**
Books like this one have me fumbling around for the right approach to review them, because they try to cram in too much within the scope of a regular sized novel and consequently just stop short of resonating strongly with the reader.
It's like Bulawayo had a message to give me, something potent and fiercely honest enough to burn right through all my prejudices and cherished misconceptions and leave me staring right at all the cold, hard facts. But then halfway into it, her voice went off in various tangential directions in an effort to tackle too many issues at one go and lost most of its intensity.
As a result the message that she had set out to deliver, gave off the impression of poor phrasing and ended up sounding half-hearted and rather dubious.
If I try my absolute best, I can only delineate this as a search for identity, a raw account of coming to terms with the after-effects of displacement. Or an attempt at summarizing in a few hundred pages the feelings of being neither here nor there.
But then Bulawayo let me know so much more. She told me about the experiences of surviving on a few stolen guavas, walking barefoot on the burning asphalt of the dusty road and yet enjoying the smug satisfaction of playing 'Find Bin Laden' with equally destitute and miserable kids of your age. And what it feels like to flee from and forget the tattered remains of a land you were born in simply because it could not offer you the promise of a fulfilling life ahead anymore - a land torn apart by strife, ethnic violence and unstable, unsympathetic governments. The irony of silently selling away your dignity in a foreign country in exchange for a life better than what your own motherland could afford to bestow upon you. The feeling of being swept up in the vortex of too many rapidly occurring changes as an illegal immigrant and the utter hopelessness of never really belonging anywhere.
Bulawayo may not be capable of subtlety or stringing beautiful words together into lengthy sentences fraught with imagery, but she has a compelling and unique voice of her own nonetheless.
I will surely look out for her other works in the future.
**A 3.5 stars that could not be rounded off to a 4**
September 6, 2014
I had a spirited chat with a fan of this book. She (naturally) stated I was behaving in a sexist manner and implied, with dark tones of voice, that I was probably a racist too, because I don't think this is a particularly good book, and *certainly* don't think it's Booker-worthy.
Rating: 2.75* of five
The Publisher Says: A remarkable literary debut -- shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize! The unflinching and powerful story of a young girl's journey out of Zimbabwe and to America.
Darling is only ten years old, and yet she must navigate a fragile and violent world. In Zimbabwe, Darling and her friends steal guavas, try to get the baby out of young Chipo's belly, and grasp at memories of Before. Before their homes were destroyed by paramilitary policemen, before the school closed, before the fathers left for dangerous jobs abroad.
But Darling has a chance to escape: she has an aunt in America. She travels to this new land in search of America's famous abundance only to find that her options as an immigrant are perilously few. NoViolet Bulawayo's debut calls to mind the great storytellers of displacement and arrival who have come before her-from Junot Diaz to Zadie Smith to J.M. Coetzee-while she tells a vivid, raw story all her own.
My Review: Okay.
Someone please, I implore you, please sit down in front of me, where I can see your lips and hear your words, and in short, simple, declarative sentences, please please oh please explain to me how the Booker people could NOT shortlist TransAtlantic, an amazing novel by an amazing writer, but CAN shortlist a novel with this in it:
Gosh, never heard that before. Never thought of telling a story about an African country's poverty from the PoV of a child before. Why no, it's just unique and unprecedented.
And it's not like it's ever been done before, even Dave Eggers (not a favorite of mine) did it in What is the What, and then there's Say You're One of Them...but what is that objection falling from your lips, those are BOYS telling their stories, not GIRLS telling theirs?
Which is it, all experience is human, or gender creates a special and different relationship to the world? Both cannot be true. Think carefully before answering that question, because one answer makes a chink in the armor protecting a very very very touchy equality argument....
But each experience of the world is unique! All should be celebrated! Uh huh. So you'll be buying a Joyce Meyer book about how she survived incestuous sexual abuse by the healing grace of gawd through Jeebus. Oh no? Too white-church-lady conservative, all because a Man helped her find resolution and a measure of peace because a girl can't do it herself?
What happened to all experiences being celebrated?
The above roughly encapsulates a call-and-response session I had with a fan of the book. She (naturally) stated I was behaving in a sexist manner and implied, with dark tones of voice, that I was probably a racist too, because I don't think this is a particularly good book, and *certainly* don't think it's Booker-worthy.
This is not a long book, and it's not, regardless of the cover, the title page, and the sales bunf, a novel. It's interlinked short stories that share a background. The author has used a rather flat, matter-of-fact tone to deliver her stories, and that's just fine for a story in a collection. It's wearing as hell when it's the ONLY tone used. It does not lend itself easily to a smooth, page-turning read. It required of me that I expend mental effort to stay engaged for the ~10-12pp the story lasted.
Now that is something, laddies and gentlewomen. In only 12pp, an author can make someone who has spent most of his life (48/54 years) reading and savoring many, many kinds of books by every conceivable terrestrial human phenotype feel the need to force his attention back to their work.
I certainly didn't hate the book, and I don't think the author should be put in the stocks thence to learn the error of her ways. I dislike the book, yes, but I commend the person who struggled to bring it forth and make it as good as she possibly could imagine it being, for doing the work, making the effort, creating an artwork that rings true in her ears.
I assume many agree with her. I am not one. I think it's a decent first book. I would pick up another book of NoViolet Bulawayo's to sample, if I happened across it. Contrast this with my response to that Purple Bruise and Yellow Sun woman Chimamanda What's-it: how fast can I run, how far can I hurl, how hard can I stomp the next and the previous books she's written.
But this isn't a particularly good book simply because it's not horrible. If you find my copy on the train, pick it up and idly leaf through. Maybe you'll like it, because goodness knows I didn't.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Rating: 2.75* of five
The Publisher Says: A remarkable literary debut -- shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize! The unflinching and powerful story of a young girl's journey out of Zimbabwe and to America.
Darling is only ten years old, and yet she must navigate a fragile and violent world. In Zimbabwe, Darling and her friends steal guavas, try to get the baby out of young Chipo's belly, and grasp at memories of Before. Before their homes were destroyed by paramilitary policemen, before the school closed, before the fathers left for dangerous jobs abroad.
But Darling has a chance to escape: she has an aunt in America. She travels to this new land in search of America's famous abundance only to find that her options as an immigrant are perilously few. NoViolet Bulawayo's debut calls to mind the great storytellers of displacement and arrival who have come before her-from Junot Diaz to Zadie Smith to J.M. Coetzee-while she tells a vivid, raw story all her own.
My Review: Okay.
Someone please, I implore you, please sit down in front of me, where I can see your lips and hear your words, and in short, simple, declarative sentences, please please oh please explain to me how the Booker people could NOT shortlist TransAtlantic, an amazing novel by an amazing writer, but CAN shortlist a novel with this in it:
I don't like going to church because I don't really see why I have to sit in the hot sun on that mountain and listen to boring songs and meaningless prayers and strange verses when I could be doing important things with my friends. Plus, last time I went, that crazy Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro shook me and shook me until I vomited pink things. I thought I was going to die a real death. Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro was trying to get the spirit inside me out; they say I am possessed because they say my grandfather isn't properly buried because the white people killed him during the war for feeding and hiding the terrorists who were trying to get our country back because the white people had stolen it.
Gosh, never heard that before. Never thought of telling a story about an African country's poverty from the PoV of a child before. Why no, it's just unique and unprecedented.
And it's not like it's ever been done before, even Dave Eggers (not a favorite of mine) did it in What is the What, and then there's Say You're One of Them...but what is that objection falling from your lips, those are BOYS telling their stories, not GIRLS telling theirs?
Which is it, all experience is human, or gender creates a special and different relationship to the world? Both cannot be true. Think carefully before answering that question, because one answer makes a chink in the armor protecting a very very very touchy equality argument....
But each experience of the world is unique! All should be celebrated! Uh huh. So you'll be buying a Joyce Meyer book about how she survived incestuous sexual abuse by the healing grace of gawd through Jeebus. Oh no? Too white-church-lady conservative, all because a Man helped her find resolution and a measure of peace because a girl can't do it herself?
What happened to all experiences being celebrated?
The above roughly encapsulates a call-and-response session I had with a fan of the book. She (naturally) stated I was behaving in a sexist manner and implied, with dark tones of voice, that I was probably a racist too, because I don't think this is a particularly good book, and *certainly* don't think it's Booker-worthy.
This is not a long book, and it's not, regardless of the cover, the title page, and the sales bunf, a novel. It's interlinked short stories that share a background. The author has used a rather flat, matter-of-fact tone to deliver her stories, and that's just fine for a story in a collection. It's wearing as hell when it's the ONLY tone used. It does not lend itself easily to a smooth, page-turning read. It required of me that I expend mental effort to stay engaged for the ~10-12pp the story lasted.
Now that is something, laddies and gentlewomen. In only 12pp, an author can make someone who has spent most of his life (48/54 years) reading and savoring many, many kinds of books by every conceivable terrestrial human phenotype feel the need to force his attention back to their work.
I certainly didn't hate the book, and I don't think the author should be put in the stocks thence to learn the error of her ways. I dislike the book, yes, but I commend the person who struggled to bring it forth and make it as good as she possibly could imagine it being, for doing the work, making the effort, creating an artwork that rings true in her ears.
I assume many agree with her. I am not one. I think it's a decent first book. I would pick up another book of NoViolet Bulawayo's to sample, if I happened across it. Contrast this with my response to that Purple Bruise and Yellow Sun woman Chimamanda What's-it: how fast can I run, how far can I hurl, how hard can I stomp the next and the previous books she's written.
But this isn't a particularly good book simply because it's not horrible. If you find my copy on the train, pick it up and idly leaf through. Maybe you'll like it, because goodness knows I didn't.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
June 18, 2020
Absolutely brilliant. This book is sizzling with life. Totally underrated! The easiest five stars I've given to a book this year. NoViolet Bulawayo's novel, We Need New Names, is an extension of her Caine prize-winning short story, "Hitting Budapest", about a girl coming of age in Zimbabwe and the United States of America—and boy, am I happy that his literature prize exists and that it enabled her to work some magic on her brilliant short story. This right here shows how important literary prizes and being given an opportunity (financially and platform-wise) are!!!
It has been a long time since I've read a book that has elicited such visceral emotions from me. I laughed, I cried. This book made me incredibly happy and incredibly sad at the same time. We Need New Names is one of my absolute new favorite books. The characters, the story, the writing ... it is absolutely mind-boggling and amazing what NoViolet Bulawayo has achieved here. And by the way, the main character absolutely hates Jane Eyre and the “stupid decisions” Jane makes in that book and I have never related to a character more in my whole life.
We Need New Names is a first-person narrative following Darling as she grows up in Zimbabwe until about the age of 10, when she is sent to the US, to live with her Aunt Fostalina, first in Detroit, Michigan [‘DestroyedMichygen’] and then in Kalamazoo. The first half of the book, in Zimbabwe, is set in the region called Matabeleland, the capital city of which is Bulawayo. Neither Zimbabwe nor Bulawayo are mentioned by name in the book, nor is the President, Robert Mugabe, but there are very obvious references to him and to the country over the first decade of the 21st century, the period during which the book is set.
Even though this is not a explicitly political novel, I found it interesting that with the little knowledge that I had of Zimbabwe under the regime of Robert Mugabe (most of which was acquired by reading Gappah's An Elegy for Easterly and Chigumadzi's These Bones Will Rise Again), even I was able to put the pieces together and contextualise the novel in its time, place and political landscape; most notably the obvious reference to the "Move the Rubbish" campaign which forcibly cleared slum areas across the country.
The place where you grow up is the centre of your world. It hardly needs a name. In Darling’s direct childhood account of her life in ‘Paradise’, the absence of these defining names seems natural. She is telling us about her life, not about Zimbabwe or Bulawayo. But to little Darling, other places, states and countries she would prefer to be in are definitely ‘names’. In fact, they are only names... remote concepts and vague ideas, nothing substantial. The reality will be something other than the places imagined.
From the beginning of the book Darling is dreaming of going to ‘myAmerica’, to ‘DestroyedMichygen’, which gloriously seems to be everything that the makeshift slum, Paradise, in unnamed Bulawayo is not. But when her aunt is coming to fetch her and Darling does get to Detroit, reality hits hard. Americans have only the vaguest idea of ‘Africa’, and Darling has to face othering in every aspect of her life. While Darling adjusts to her new life and the new problems it brings with it, underneath it she is aware that something has been broken that she will never be able to mend.
We Need New Names reminded me a lot of my own father and how he deals with his displacement in a country that is not his home. There were so many moments in this novel that were so well captured and relatable, they put a chill down my spine. Finally, someone found the right words to describe how (some) immigrants feel in regards to home, language, integration—
And so in the US, Darling doesn't only have to deal with the racism and othering that she is subjected to, she also witnesses what this displacement does to her aunt and uncle. One of the most memorable scenes in the book is when Aunt Fostalina tries to order a bra, and the American lady on the telephone is unwilling to understand her:
In general, We Need New Names discusses so many existential themes in such a flawless manner, I am absolutely shook. In the first half of the book, as Darling is still a little girl, the writing is lighthearted, clearly evoking the voice and mannerisms of a child. Just last year, I visited my little cousins (both six) in Cameroon, and Bulawayo's writing style in the first half of the book was very reminiscent of their mode of speaking. I was incredibly impressed with how well she managed to capture the voices of little kids. But as Darling grows older, the writing matures with her, and I loved the increasing use of metaphors and similes. This coming of age tale really dethrones all other novels of that genre when it comes to the writing style.
There are so many sentences and scenes that stuck with me (which you can probably see by the amount of quotations used in this review); one of which is the story of 11-year-old Chipo who is pregnant. When, one day, Darling and her friend try to perform an abortion, they are interrupted by a woman from the village, who disrupts the children's naivety and brings the much needed heaviness to the horrific situation. The woman breaks down crying and reaches out to Chipo who has started to wail as well, and then “We are all watching and not knowing what to do because when grown-ups cry, it’s not like you can ask them what’s wrong or tell them to shut up; there are just no words for grown-up’s tears.” I mean, WOW. Again, a perfectly captured real moment. I have no words!
First-person narration in the created character of Darling, aged ten to about nineteen, is sustained throughout the book. However, there are three passages where an authorial voice intervenes and indicates a transition. The first lament is for people leaving their settled homes. Then the second lament is for their lost countries. The final lament is for ‘illegals’ in a foreign land, psychologically unable to return home. These laments contain the most beautiful passages of writing that I encountered thus far in 2020.
The first lament, “How They Came”, describes the people, internally displaced when their homes are flattened by bulldozers. They arrive with the bare detritus of their belongings, to set up in a makeshift slum, with what bits of plastic and tin and wood they have been able to save from the government’s destruction of their township houses.
The second lament, “How They Left”, explores the world-wide scale of despair and departure. This lament closes the first half of the book, after a climax of chilling political thuggery, and moves us on to the second half—Darling's migration to the US.
Lastly, I wanna talk about the ending which absolutely destroyed me, because again ... it is so true ... and therefore, inevitable. It comes to a clash between Darling and the ones she's left behind. Where there was love and shared kinship before, there's now a gaping hole, a detachment that no bridge can span. And so, when Darling wants to share some well-intentioned counsel to her friend Chipo after all those years, she is rejected in the harshest of words: “If it’s your country, you have to love it to live in it and not leave it. You have to gift for it no matter what, to make it right. […] You left it, Darling, my dear, you left the house burning and you have the guts to tell me, in that stupid accent that you were not even born with, that doesn’t even suit you, that this is your country?” After that, Darling stands up and throws her computer against the wall. Now, she has no place where she truly belongs.
There are no resolutions, no reconciliations, and there is no ending in Darling’s story. We Need New Names just stops. It’s up to the reader’s imagination to fill in the gaps.
It has been a long time since I've read a book that has elicited such visceral emotions from me. I laughed, I cried. This book made me incredibly happy and incredibly sad at the same time. We Need New Names is one of my absolute new favorite books. The characters, the story, the writing ... it is absolutely mind-boggling and amazing what NoViolet Bulawayo has achieved here. And by the way, the main character absolutely hates Jane Eyre and the “stupid decisions” Jane makes in that book and I have never related to a character more in my whole life.
“In order to do this right, we need new names.”Darling, the protagonist of NoViolet Bulawayo’s debut (!) novel , rackets around the Zimbabwean shanty town of Paradise with her friends: Chipo, 11, mysteriously pregnant, and mute; cheerful Godknows with shorts so thin his buttocks protrude; Sbho the beautiful, Bastard the aggressive, and Stina the voice of reason. Even the grim surroundings can’t keep this little gang down for long, as they run riot through the streets, stealing guavas, poking their noses into everything and scrawling on walls.
We Need New Names is a first-person narrative following Darling as she grows up in Zimbabwe until about the age of 10, when she is sent to the US, to live with her Aunt Fostalina, first in Detroit, Michigan [‘DestroyedMichygen’] and then in Kalamazoo. The first half of the book, in Zimbabwe, is set in the region called Matabeleland, the capital city of which is Bulawayo. Neither Zimbabwe nor Bulawayo are mentioned by name in the book, nor is the President, Robert Mugabe, but there are very obvious references to him and to the country over the first decade of the 21st century, the period during which the book is set.
Even though this is not a explicitly political novel, I found it interesting that with the little knowledge that I had of Zimbabwe under the regime of Robert Mugabe (most of which was acquired by reading Gappah's An Elegy for Easterly and Chigumadzi's These Bones Will Rise Again), even I was able to put the pieces together and contextualise the novel in its time, place and political landscape; most notably the obvious reference to the "Move the Rubbish" campaign which forcibly cleared slum areas across the country.
The place where you grow up is the centre of your world. It hardly needs a name. In Darling’s direct childhood account of her life in ‘Paradise’, the absence of these defining names seems natural. She is telling us about her life, not about Zimbabwe or Bulawayo. But to little Darling, other places, states and countries she would prefer to be in are definitely ‘names’. In fact, they are only names... remote concepts and vague ideas, nothing substantial. The reality will be something other than the places imagined.
From the beginning of the book Darling is dreaming of going to ‘myAmerica’, to ‘DestroyedMichygen’, which gloriously seems to be everything that the makeshift slum, Paradise, in unnamed Bulawayo is not. But when her aunt is coming to fetch her and Darling does get to Detroit, reality hits hard. Americans have only the vaguest idea of ‘Africa’, and Darling has to face othering in every aspect of her life. While Darling adjusts to her new life and the new problems it brings with it, underneath it she is aware that something has been broken that she will never be able to mend.
“Leaving your country is like dying, and when you come back you are like a ghost returning to earth, roaming around with missing gaze in your eyes.”Darling is existentially living in America, while emotionally in some other construct in her memory. One cannot shake the feeling that Darling would've been in need of therapy, or at least a person whom she could trust and pour her heart out. And even though, over time, she manages to settle in in school and find new friends, “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.” Yep, nothing is going to fix that.
We Need New Names reminded me a lot of my own father and how he deals with his displacement in a country that is not his home. There were so many moments in this novel that were so well captured and relatable, they put a chill down my spine. Finally, someone found the right words to describe how (some) immigrants feel in regards to home, language, integration—
“Because we were not in our country, we could not use our own languages, and so when we spoke our voices came out bruised. When we talked, our tongues thrashed madly in our mouths, staggered like drunken men. Because we were not using our languages we said things we did not mean; what we really wanted to say remained folded inside. Trapped. In America we did not always have the words. It was only when were were by ourselves that we spoke in our real voices. When we were alone we summoned the horses of our languages and mounted their backs and galloped past skyscrapers. Always, we were reluctant to come back.”—and how they act, most notably how they act differently, how a dormant part of their being is being rekindled as soon as they encounter someone from home: “I keep watching Uncle Kojo; whenever he is with someone from his country, everything about him is different—his laugh, his talk, his eating—it’s like something cuts him open to reveal this other person I don’t even know.” The moments NoViolet Bulawayo describes are so real and so true, they make my heart ache.
And so in the US, Darling doesn't only have to deal with the racism and othering that she is subjected to, she also witnesses what this displacement does to her aunt and uncle. One of the most memorable scenes in the book is when Aunt Fostalina tries to order a bra, and the American lady on the telephone is unwilling to understand her:
“I know that she will stand there and start the conversation all over and say out loud, in careful English, all the things that she meant to say, that she should have said to the girl on the phone but did not because she could not find the words at the time. I know that in front of that mirror, Aunt Fostalina will be articulate, that English will come alive on her tongue and she will spit it like it’s burning her mouth, like it’s poison, like it’s the only language she has ever known.”But as the years go by, Darling becomes aware of troubling paradoxes within herself, of her own detachment from her home country. This detachment is marked by long silences in conversations, particularly in the mobile phone conversations she has with her mother and her childhood friends back home. She says she doesn’t know what to reply. She is unable to respond when she has conflicting answers in her head. She struggles to deal with the paradoxes she is now beginning to know.
In general, We Need New Names discusses so many existential themes in such a flawless manner, I am absolutely shook. In the first half of the book, as Darling is still a little girl, the writing is lighthearted, clearly evoking the voice and mannerisms of a child. Just last year, I visited my little cousins (both six) in Cameroon, and Bulawayo's writing style in the first half of the book was very reminiscent of their mode of speaking. I was incredibly impressed with how well she managed to capture the voices of little kids. But as Darling grows older, the writing matures with her, and I loved the increasing use of metaphors and similes. This coming of age tale really dethrones all other novels of that genre when it comes to the writing style.
There are so many sentences and scenes that stuck with me (which you can probably see by the amount of quotations used in this review); one of which is the story of 11-year-old Chipo who is pregnant. When, one day, Darling and her friend try to perform an abortion, they are interrupted by a woman from the village, who disrupts the children's naivety and brings the much needed heaviness to the horrific situation. The woman breaks down crying and reaches out to Chipo who has started to wail as well, and then “We are all watching and not knowing what to do because when grown-ups cry, it’s not like you can ask them what’s wrong or tell them to shut up; there are just no words for grown-up’s tears.” I mean, WOW. Again, a perfectly captured real moment. I have no words!
First-person narration in the created character of Darling, aged ten to about nineteen, is sustained throughout the book. However, there are three passages where an authorial voice intervenes and indicates a transition. The first lament is for people leaving their settled homes. Then the second lament is for their lost countries. The final lament is for ‘illegals’ in a foreign land, psychologically unable to return home. These laments contain the most beautiful passages of writing that I encountered thus far in 2020.
The first lament, “How They Came”, describes the people, internally displaced when their homes are flattened by bulldozers. They arrive with the bare detritus of their belongings, to set up in a makeshift slum, with what bits of plastic and tin and wood they have been able to save from the government’s destruction of their township houses.
The second lament, “How They Left”, explores the world-wide scale of despair and departure. This lament closes the first half of the book, after a climax of chilling political thuggery, and moves us on to the second half—Darling's migration to the US.
“Look at the children of the land leaving in droves, leaving their own land with bleeding wounds on their bodies and shock on their faces and blood in their hearts and hunger in their stomachs and grief in their footsteps. Leaving their mothers and fathers and children behind, leaving their umbilical cords underneath the soil, leaving the bones of their ancestors in the earth, leaving everything that makes them who and what they are, leaving because it is no longer possible to stay. They will never be the same again because you cannot be the same once you leave behind who and what you are, you just cannot be the same.”The third lament, “How They Lived”, occurs before the closing passages of the book—a howl of pain for the deracinated immigrant, cut off from their parents back home, but also from their own westernised children, who “did not beg us for stories of the land we had left behind. They went to their computers and googled …they looked at us with something between pity and horror and said, Jeez, you really come from there?”:
“Look at them leaving in droves despite knowing they will be welcomed with restraint in those strange lands because they do not belong, knowing they will have to sit on one buttock because they must not sit comfortable lest they be asked to rise and leave, knowing they will speak in dampened whispers because they must not let their voices drown those of the owners of the land, knowing they will have to walk on their toes because they must not leave footprints on the new earth lest they be mistaken for those who want to claim the land as theirs. Look at them leaving in droves, arm in arm with loss and lost, look at them leaving in droves.”
“And when they asked us where we were from, we exchanged glances and smiled with the shyness of child brides. They said, Africa? We nodded yes. What part of Africa? We smiled. Is it that part where vultures wait for famished children to die? We smiled. Where the life expectancy is thirty-five years? We smiled? Is is there where dissidents shove AK-47s between women's legs? We smiled. Where people run about naked? We smiled. That part where they massacred each other? We smiled. Is it where the old president rigged the election and people were tortured and killed and a whole bunch of them put in prison and all, there where they are dying of cholera - oh my God, yes, we've seen your country; it's been on the news.”I mean, how can you not fall in love with this book? The writing is GORGEOUS. Absolutely GORGEOUS! These laments are so tragically beautiful and the ways in which they function as transition and narrative shifts is just perfection. I am shook to my core. These laments are so raw, and have a sense of urgency to them, I want to shout them from the rooftops.
Lastly, I wanna talk about the ending which absolutely destroyed me, because again ... it is so true ... and therefore, inevitable. It comes to a clash between Darling and the ones she's left behind. Where there was love and shared kinship before, there's now a gaping hole, a detachment that no bridge can span. And so, when Darling wants to share some well-intentioned counsel to her friend Chipo after all those years, she is rejected in the harshest of words: “If it’s your country, you have to love it to live in it and not leave it. You have to gift for it no matter what, to make it right. […] You left it, Darling, my dear, you left the house burning and you have the guts to tell me, in that stupid accent that you were not even born with, that doesn’t even suit you, that this is your country?” After that, Darling stands up and throws her computer against the wall. Now, she has no place where she truly belongs.
There are no resolutions, no reconciliations, and there is no ending in Darling’s story. We Need New Names just stops. It’s up to the reader’s imagination to fill in the gaps.
December 4, 2013
Hard to say what drew me to this book -- the author's name is just awesome. The cover is eye-catching. The reviews have been stellar. Also, I've long been interested in the painful history of Zimbabwe (once British colonial Rhodesia) since I tried to figure out how to teach this hugely complex subject and do it justice in my middle school social studies classroom. (I can't say that I ever really succeeded.) Bulawayo writes a searingly beautiful story -- a fictionalized memoir -- about a young girl Darling growing up in a Zimbabwean shantytown called Paradise. The words Zimbabwe and Mugabe never appear in the book, which somehow makes the sense of place and the menace of the president all the more real. Bulawayo is brilliant at showing us Zimbabwe through the eyes of ten-year-old Darling and her friends. Even the most horrifying and heart-wrenching scenes are leavened by the children's incredulity, defiant mischievousness and bursts of humor. The language is simply beautiful -- fresh, genuine, evocative. Most impressively, Bulawayo keeps the narrative just as compelling when (sort of a spoiler, but not really) Darling moves to America halfway through the book. This would be a natural place for a book to lose steam, changing settings after such a vivid first half, but Darling's story remains riveting, and we see America afresh through her eyes. What does it mean to be American? To be African? Where does Darling belong and what is 'her country'? The book offers no easy answers. That would be impossible. But with immigration a hotter political topic than ever, We Need New Names offers us a wonderful, intensely personal perspective on what it means to be an immigrant in modern America. Highly recommended for high school and above, and the scene which gives the book its title . . . wow. So poignant I can't do justice describing it, so I won't try. But you'll see when you read it.
October 2, 2013
A few years ago I was listening to one of those From our Own Correspondent programmes on the BBC. A female journalist was on an assignment in Mali and had got herself completely lost. She drove up to this village the middle of nowhere and a whole crowd of teenagers spotted her and came crowding around. She noticed with a jolt that they all had Osama Bin Laden t-shirts on. With a sinking feeling, she figured that she might be in some serious trouble. They demanded to know who she was. She told them she was from the BBC.
“BBC! BBC!” they all started yelling and cheering. “We love America! America! BBC!”
This illustrates a certain two-way misunderstanding between the West and the developing countries. And also that you can’t judge a person by the t-shirt they’re wearing. It might be the only one they could find that morning.
In this novel Darling is a 10 or 11 year old girl living in Paradise, a bitterly named shantytown, in Zimbabwe, round about 2007 and 2008, when the whole country was falling apart. We don’t see the big picture because we’re with a bunch of kids who roam around stealing guava and playing stupid games because they don’t go to school any more, school closed. So you don’t get any mention of the scary hyperinflation which was a happening thing at that time.
Wiki :
Over the course of the five-year span of hyperinflation, the inflation rate fluctuated greatly. At one point, the US Ambassador to Zimbabwe predicted that it would reach 1.5 million percent. In June 2008 the annual rate of price growth was 11.2 million percent. The worst of the inflation occurred in 2008, leading to the abandonment of the currency. The peak month of hyperinflation occurred in mid-November 2008 with a rate estimated at 79,600,000,000% per month. The price of US$1 cost $Z2,621,984,228 in October 2008
Here’s a Zimbabwean one hundred trillion dollar note – you don’t see many of those things. Highly collectible now.
Anyway, long story short, Darling gets a lucky break – she has an aunt in Detroit who gets her into America on a visitor’s visa. And of course she stays (and becomes an illegal). So from being a bittersweet celebration of how kids manage to live their own lives amongst adult cruelty and economic catastrophe the story then changes gear, very smoothly, and becomes about awkwardness – the square peg in a round hole-ness of the immigrant experience. The intense longing for home yet never wanting to go back. The love of family but the dread of them actually phoning all the time asking for money, always money. That kind of thing. I think other readers have mentioned that NoViolet Bulawayo seems intent on ticking an awful lot of issue boxes as she zips through her story – for instance, of course the daughter of the rich guy whose house Darling cleans has bulimia, and the material riches and moral emptiness of America are laid on with a bit of a trowel, it’s not unfair to say; but still, this was good stuff.
And there’s a brilliant stand-alone chapter called “How They Lived” which is a kind of sad survey of the whole immigrant experience and is one of the best things I read all year.
3.5 stars
“BBC! BBC!” they all started yelling and cheering. “We love America! America! BBC!”
This illustrates a certain two-way misunderstanding between the West and the developing countries. And also that you can’t judge a person by the t-shirt they’re wearing. It might be the only one they could find that morning.
In this novel Darling is a 10 or 11 year old girl living in Paradise, a bitterly named shantytown, in Zimbabwe, round about 2007 and 2008, when the whole country was falling apart. We don’t see the big picture because we’re with a bunch of kids who roam around stealing guava and playing stupid games because they don’t go to school any more, school closed. So you don’t get any mention of the scary hyperinflation which was a happening thing at that time.
Wiki :
Over the course of the five-year span of hyperinflation, the inflation rate fluctuated greatly. At one point, the US Ambassador to Zimbabwe predicted that it would reach 1.5 million percent. In June 2008 the annual rate of price growth was 11.2 million percent. The worst of the inflation occurred in 2008, leading to the abandonment of the currency. The peak month of hyperinflation occurred in mid-November 2008 with a rate estimated at 79,600,000,000% per month. The price of US$1 cost $Z2,621,984,228 in October 2008
Here’s a Zimbabwean one hundred trillion dollar note – you don’t see many of those things. Highly collectible now.
Anyway, long story short, Darling gets a lucky break – she has an aunt in Detroit who gets her into America on a visitor’s visa. And of course she stays (and becomes an illegal). So from being a bittersweet celebration of how kids manage to live their own lives amongst adult cruelty and economic catastrophe the story then changes gear, very smoothly, and becomes about awkwardness – the square peg in a round hole-ness of the immigrant experience. The intense longing for home yet never wanting to go back. The love of family but the dread of them actually phoning all the time asking for money, always money. That kind of thing. I think other readers have mentioned that NoViolet Bulawayo seems intent on ticking an awful lot of issue boxes as she zips through her story – for instance, of course the daughter of the rich guy whose house Darling cleans has bulimia, and the material riches and moral emptiness of America are laid on with a bit of a trowel, it’s not unfair to say; but still, this was good stuff.
And there’s a brilliant stand-alone chapter called “How They Lived” which is a kind of sad survey of the whole immigrant experience and is one of the best things I read all year.
3.5 stars
September 13, 2016
I don’t think I’ve ever rated a book based mostly on its second-last chapter, but I think that’s what I did here. For the majority of this book I thought it was an average read. The first part with the child narrator in Zimbabwe was ok, but so scattered and not overly interesting (how many times can the kids steal guavas, eat guavas, get constipated from guavas?). It felt like a bunch of observations and anecdotes, some standalone short stories even, not really a cohesive novel. Then the child immigrates to America and grows up, and there are some wonderful moments like discovering that you can buy almost anything over the phone, that people throw away food regularly, that toilets flush by themselves, and great scenes and moments that made me smile at my own memories of discovering the supermarkets and the tv channels and people who won’t touch a doorknob (which I still don’t understand).
Anyway. The second-last chapter titled “How They Lived” is a stunning piece of writing that brought all of the second half together for me. It should be read by anyone who is anti-immigration, or who believes in the sweeping deportation of illegal immigrants. Not only is it an agonizing account of how often people go to other countries because it’s literally life or death - not to steal your jobs or corrupt your world - but it is a beautiful, raw piece about the hidden pain of those who leave home. The knowledge that this land is not your land and never will be, and the strangeness and tension that doesn’t quite leave. A few months ago I went home after a long time and didn’t notice at first that my whole demeanor had changed: that invisible thing pressing down on me constantly in my new country was suddenly gone and I was light and ok and I could breathe again.
That second-last chapter knows why you promise your parents you’ll be back next year, the year after, definitely next year, next year for sure, and often the parents left behind are thinking of you over here in the abstract: they think you’ve grown selfish and forgotten them, that you don’t love them enough to visit - not that you have a real life and a job with barely any vacation time, or a spouse, or children in school, and certainly not that you don’t have enough money to go back (because everyone in America is rich), and so much time goes by and they don’t know how much it aches to not go back, they don’t know because you don’t tell them, and you don’t tell them because you try not to think about it, and these misunderstandings fester until one day you call and there are nephews and nieces you don’t know, and there’s nothing to say because you don’t even know these people anymore, or you get those middle of the night phone calls which at first seem to be annoying (all these years and they still don’t remember the time difference!) but that turn out to be the phone call you knew would come one day, and it takes you two days to get home and you miss the funeral, or worse - you can’t leave the country at all because you don’t have the papers to get back in. Bulawayo writes a small scene in this chapter about putting on loud music so no one will hear and wailing wailing wailing over the grief of a dead parent you never saw again.
I am the target audience for a book like this, so my enthusiasm is skewed, I’m sure - especially since I was lukewarm for the first half of the book. Bulawayo is great at scenes and emotive writing, but not (yet) too skilled with structure. There were so many ideas that could have and should have had their own book instead of small mentions: Child-rape and child-pregnancy, incest, AIDS, Mugabe’s bulldozing, starvation, suicide, and Christian fundamentalism are just a few of the topics crammed in here.
3.5 rounded up.
Anyway. The second-last chapter titled “How They Lived” is a stunning piece of writing that brought all of the second half together for me. It should be read by anyone who is anti-immigration, or who believes in the sweeping deportation of illegal immigrants. Not only is it an agonizing account of how often people go to other countries because it’s literally life or death - not to steal your jobs or corrupt your world - but it is a beautiful, raw piece about the hidden pain of those who leave home. The knowledge that this land is not your land and never will be, and the strangeness and tension that doesn’t quite leave. A few months ago I went home after a long time and didn’t notice at first that my whole demeanor had changed: that invisible thing pressing down on me constantly in my new country was suddenly gone and I was light and ok and I could breathe again.
That second-last chapter knows why you promise your parents you’ll be back next year, the year after, definitely next year, next year for sure, and often the parents left behind are thinking of you over here in the abstract: they think you’ve grown selfish and forgotten them, that you don’t love them enough to visit - not that you have a real life and a job with barely any vacation time, or a spouse, or children in school, and certainly not that you don’t have enough money to go back (because everyone in America is rich), and so much time goes by and they don’t know how much it aches to not go back, they don’t know because you don’t tell them, and you don’t tell them because you try not to think about it, and these misunderstandings fester until one day you call and there are nephews and nieces you don’t know, and there’s nothing to say because you don’t even know these people anymore, or you get those middle of the night phone calls which at first seem to be annoying (all these years and they still don’t remember the time difference!) but that turn out to be the phone call you knew would come one day, and it takes you two days to get home and you miss the funeral, or worse - you can’t leave the country at all because you don’t have the papers to get back in. Bulawayo writes a small scene in this chapter about putting on loud music so no one will hear and wailing wailing wailing over the grief of a dead parent you never saw again.
I am the target audience for a book like this, so my enthusiasm is skewed, I’m sure - especially since I was lukewarm for the first half of the book. Bulawayo is great at scenes and emotive writing, but not (yet) too skilled with structure. There were so many ideas that could have and should have had their own book instead of small mentions: Child-rape and child-pregnancy, incest, AIDS, Mugabe’s bulldozing, starvation, suicide, and Christian fundamentalism are just a few of the topics crammed in here.
3.5 rounded up.
March 13, 2016
4.5 stars rounded up.
I had read mixed reviews of this novel with comments focussing on it being disjointed or running through a ticklist of African problems to squeeze in them all. Some have taken issues with the first half of the book, some with the second half.
It is the story of Darling; she is born in Zimbabwe and in the first part of the book she is ten years old. Darling and her gang of friends Chipo, Godknows, Bastard, Stina and Sbho, do pretty much what children left to their own devices will do in terms of games, adventures and getting into trouble. They live in a shanty town called Paradise and each day has its own particular adventures. They often venture into the wealthy white area to steal guava and enjoy a transient sense of importance. They all dream of a different life, some at home, and some in other places like the US. The second half of the book follows Darling as she moves to live with her aunt in Detroit, Michigan or Destroyedmichygen as she calls it. We follow her as she grows up and moves on to more adolescent adventures.
It has taken me a while to pin down what I think of the novel. The writing is unusual and idiosyncratic; English is not Bulawayo’s first language. This, I think, means she takes some liberties with the language and takes it to some different places. This is refreshing. The novel describes difficult experiences, but there is an honesty and humour about it which carries it along.
The chapters take snapshots of events, which has led to accusations of disjointedness; I didn’t find this a problem and for me the book flowed well and was easy to read. There were little niggles but not the major problems I was expecting form some of the reviews.
Bulawayo describes very well Darling’s growing sense of disillusion and alienation as a migrant in America. There is a brilliant chapter towards the end of the book entitled “How they lived” which describes the migrant experience in a heartfelt and angry way which really hits home. I have seen reviews which describe the novel as nihilistic; I really don’t get that at all. It describes poverty and alienation. It moves from Zimbabwe where conditions were difficult and there was great poverty, but Darling and her friends seemed full of life and often joy, to the US where there is much greater material wealth, but it is not home. Home is an important concept as Bulawayo explains;
“There are three homes inside Mother’s and Aunt Fostalina’s heads: home before independence, before I was born, when black people and white people were fighting over the country. Home after independence, when black people won the country. And then the home of things falling apart, which made Aunt Fostalina leave and come here. Home one, home two, and home three. There are four homes inside Mother of Bones’ head: home before the white people came to steal the country, and a king ruled; home when the white people came to steal the country and then there was war; home when black people got our stolen country back after independence; and then the home of now. Home one, home two, home three, home four. When somebody talks about home, you have to listen carefully so you know exactly which one the person is referring to.”
If you want to read a more interesting and balanced review than those you will find in the western literary press read the one by Nkiacha Atemnkeng. I have attempted a link here;
http://munyori.org/essays/nkiacha-ate...
The book portrays through the eyes of a child/adolescent the effects of Imperialism and colonialism and highlights the difficulties of the migrant experience. It is also a simple human/family story of how life goes on in the face of different types of adversity and oppression. I found it refreshing and thought provoking.
I had read mixed reviews of this novel with comments focussing on it being disjointed or running through a ticklist of African problems to squeeze in them all. Some have taken issues with the first half of the book, some with the second half.
It is the story of Darling; she is born in Zimbabwe and in the first part of the book she is ten years old. Darling and her gang of friends Chipo, Godknows, Bastard, Stina and Sbho, do pretty much what children left to their own devices will do in terms of games, adventures and getting into trouble. They live in a shanty town called Paradise and each day has its own particular adventures. They often venture into the wealthy white area to steal guava and enjoy a transient sense of importance. They all dream of a different life, some at home, and some in other places like the US. The second half of the book follows Darling as she moves to live with her aunt in Detroit, Michigan or Destroyedmichygen as she calls it. We follow her as she grows up and moves on to more adolescent adventures.
It has taken me a while to pin down what I think of the novel. The writing is unusual and idiosyncratic; English is not Bulawayo’s first language. This, I think, means she takes some liberties with the language and takes it to some different places. This is refreshing. The novel describes difficult experiences, but there is an honesty and humour about it which carries it along.
The chapters take snapshots of events, which has led to accusations of disjointedness; I didn’t find this a problem and for me the book flowed well and was easy to read. There were little niggles but not the major problems I was expecting form some of the reviews.
Bulawayo describes very well Darling’s growing sense of disillusion and alienation as a migrant in America. There is a brilliant chapter towards the end of the book entitled “How they lived” which describes the migrant experience in a heartfelt and angry way which really hits home. I have seen reviews which describe the novel as nihilistic; I really don’t get that at all. It describes poverty and alienation. It moves from Zimbabwe where conditions were difficult and there was great poverty, but Darling and her friends seemed full of life and often joy, to the US where there is much greater material wealth, but it is not home. Home is an important concept as Bulawayo explains;
“There are three homes inside Mother’s and Aunt Fostalina’s heads: home before independence, before I was born, when black people and white people were fighting over the country. Home after independence, when black people won the country. And then the home of things falling apart, which made Aunt Fostalina leave and come here. Home one, home two, and home three. There are four homes inside Mother of Bones’ head: home before the white people came to steal the country, and a king ruled; home when the white people came to steal the country and then there was war; home when black people got our stolen country back after independence; and then the home of now. Home one, home two, home three, home four. When somebody talks about home, you have to listen carefully so you know exactly which one the person is referring to.”
If you want to read a more interesting and balanced review than those you will find in the western literary press read the one by Nkiacha Atemnkeng. I have attempted a link here;
http://munyori.org/essays/nkiacha-ate...
The book portrays through the eyes of a child/adolescent the effects of Imperialism and colonialism and highlights the difficulties of the migrant experience. It is also a simple human/family story of how life goes on in the face of different types of adversity and oppression. I found it refreshing and thought provoking.
August 29, 2013
You may love a book and hate it at the same time. I did, for this one.
Why love? Too many reasons, African, Man Booker tagging at it, youngish writer, and a powerful and unique style that is not too easy to forget.
Why hate? Because, because, why cram in a million things into a single book? At some point I felt like I was reading a reportage of Zimbabwe and the American immigrant experience all rolled into a tight, clever, linkage to the main character incidents and (mis)adventures. So that the issues stood so out so much you'd feel that they sort of mattered more than the story.
Well, that's a longer paragraph than the love one, but love outweighs the dislike. These kind of books are rare, trust me. That though they have a singular inherent weakness, the artistry of the story's delivery is enough to overlook it.
It is divided into two, the story. The first part is of Darling and her friends back in Zimbabwe, craving guavas and running out to steal them. Through the eyes of Darling we see not only the pain of those close to her, but the collective pain of a nation that has been brought to its knees. Its best citizens are running out of the country, and poverty and corruption eats away at the rest. Every one wishes to step out, all, in droves are running to find a better world.
The bridge between the first part and the second is a powerful two page statement of this exodus.
An exodus into other nations where these immigrants desperately seek a life, an identity, a belonging, but are met by some cold facts. For Darling its America, where she goes to be with her auntie, to find an education. But the struggle has only just began. America is nothing like the life she thought she would have, nothing like the dreams of owning her dream car and being a millionaire. It is a cold place where she has to find only some semblance of comfort in her fellow immigrants. And her struggle to make sense of things.
This is a readable book that has been well realized, with characters one is not likely to forget so soon.
Why love? Too many reasons, African, Man Booker tagging at it, youngish writer, and a powerful and unique style that is not too easy to forget.
Why hate? Because, because, why cram in a million things into a single book? At some point I felt like I was reading a reportage of Zimbabwe and the American immigrant experience all rolled into a tight, clever, linkage to the main character incidents and (mis)adventures. So that the issues stood so out so much you'd feel that they sort of mattered more than the story.
Well, that's a longer paragraph than the love one, but love outweighs the dislike. These kind of books are rare, trust me. That though they have a singular inherent weakness, the artistry of the story's delivery is enough to overlook it.
It is divided into two, the story. The first part is of Darling and her friends back in Zimbabwe, craving guavas and running out to steal them. Through the eyes of Darling we see not only the pain of those close to her, but the collective pain of a nation that has been brought to its knees. Its best citizens are running out of the country, and poverty and corruption eats away at the rest. Every one wishes to step out, all, in droves are running to find a better world.
The bridge between the first part and the second is a powerful two page statement of this exodus.
An exodus into other nations where these immigrants desperately seek a life, an identity, a belonging, but are met by some cold facts. For Darling its America, where she goes to be with her auntie, to find an education. But the struggle has only just began. America is nothing like the life she thought she would have, nothing like the dreams of owning her dream car and being a millionaire. It is a cold place where she has to find only some semblance of comfort in her fellow immigrants. And her struggle to make sense of things.
This is a readable book that has been well realized, with characters one is not likely to forget so soon.
July 10, 2016
Darling is a dispossessed soul in conflict with everything she ever knew. She grew up in Buluwayo, Zimbabwe, but never really names the country or its leader until in her acknowledgement at the end of the book.
In truly picturesque prose Darling shares her memories of violence, pseudo-religious events headed by Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro on the mountain, and numerous incidences of hunger, and the joy of their childhood games like 'Catching Osama Ben Ladin", 'Country-game" and "Vasco Da Gama". Cultural practices are embedded in her psyche since birth when a child's umbilical cord is buried in the ground to ensure the new baby's covenant with the soil and the forefathers. Blessings are spread with the ritual pouring of tobacco and beer on the ground. Their shanty town, after their more affluent home was destroyed in the suburbs, was called Paradise, and the group of childhood friends constantly went back to an affluent suburb called Budapest, to steel guavas. It was often their only way of getting something to eat for days on end.
Her childhood friends and family have endearing names, such as Godknows, Chipo, Stina, Sbho, Nomoretroubles, Bastard(his little sister Fraction), Mother of Bones, and Messenger.
Expressions such as
'I'm not talking to you, chapped buttocks' and
'I don't need any kaka school to make money, you goat-teeth', and
'I really think flat-face, peeping-buttocks Godknows is only saying it to please ugly-face Bastard' and
'Hey cabbage ears, what are you bathing for?',
ensure that the journey through this book becomes a warm, colorful one despite the dark, sad undertones.
With her Aunt Fostelina living in America, married to a Ganaian, Darling gets a chance to escape to a better life, although she is an illegal immigrant. Her experience of a United Nations of people around her in the USA is shared with wonder and nostalgia. She is a member of the generation being born after the colonialist came to steal their country, after the fall of colonialism, and now the brutal regime of Robert Mugabe.
People are murdered, including naturally born white Zimbabweans, the school system collapse, and all services crash down with the Chinese moving in to reap the benefits of a destroyed nation in dire poverty and despair. The country's leader has been widely accused of ethnic cleansing, orchestrating political violence and serial cheating at the polls.
Millions of the inhabitants are fleeing in all wind directions to escape their own government troups.
Her soul remains in transition forever, since she floats between two worlds which took away her freedom of choice. In Zimbabwe she has no future, neither in America with her illegal status. No prosperity awaits her which ever choice she makes. After thirteen years she feels disconnected from her old- as well as new world.
MY COMMENTS
It is an insightful read and an eye-opening journey through the true suffering of immigrants. I recommend this read to anybody who would like to experience the true feelings and thoughts of people in flight.
ONE LITTLE GRIPE:
The reading was very confusing since dialogue mixed in with the rest of the text without any warning. It made it very difficult to distinguish between conversations and narrative. The method in this madness passed me by. At first it worked, since a nine-year-old girl shared her memories, but then she becomes a grown-up and by the time this tale is told, she is already on her way to college, yet the confusion remained in the text.
However, the underlying sadness of the loss of identity and constant feelings of longing of a displaced person spoke to me. The author captures the perpetual mourning of all first generation immigrants very well. The detailed descriptions of Darling's environment were excellent.
I am glad I read this book about a young girl who had one leg in her motherland, which gave her 'story, swag and soul', and her other leg in America, who gave her the opportunity to tell her story. Her journey gave her hope and strength of character.
NoViolet Buluwayo is the pseudonym of Elizabeth Tshele who changed her name to honor her mother and her home city. 'No Violet' means 'With Violet' in Ndebele.
The title reflects on her change of perception about her country, her new destiny and the changes it all brought in her life. A new name calls for new beginnings and to leave the past behind, however difficult it seems to be. Her generation was born free and cannot blame the devastation on the past, but want to address the problems that was created in their own life times. The implication is that her generation wants to get rid of a leader who ruled for too long and destroyed everything.
It was a good read indeed. I loved this book.
In truly picturesque prose Darling shares her memories of violence, pseudo-religious events headed by Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro on the mountain, and numerous incidences of hunger, and the joy of their childhood games like 'Catching Osama Ben Ladin", 'Country-game" and "Vasco Da Gama". Cultural practices are embedded in her psyche since birth when a child's umbilical cord is buried in the ground to ensure the new baby's covenant with the soil and the forefathers. Blessings are spread with the ritual pouring of tobacco and beer on the ground. Their shanty town, after their more affluent home was destroyed in the suburbs, was called Paradise, and the group of childhood friends constantly went back to an affluent suburb called Budapest, to steel guavas. It was often their only way of getting something to eat for days on end.
Her childhood friends and family have endearing names, such as Godknows, Chipo, Stina, Sbho, Nomoretroubles, Bastard(his little sister Fraction), Mother of Bones, and Messenger.
Expressions such as
'I'm not talking to you, chapped buttocks' and
'I don't need any kaka school to make money, you goat-teeth', and
'I really think flat-face, peeping-buttocks Godknows is only saying it to please ugly-face Bastard' and
'Hey cabbage ears, what are you bathing for?',
ensure that the journey through this book becomes a warm, colorful one despite the dark, sad undertones.
With her Aunt Fostelina living in America, married to a Ganaian, Darling gets a chance to escape to a better life, although she is an illegal immigrant. Her experience of a United Nations of people around her in the USA is shared with wonder and nostalgia. She is a member of the generation being born after the colonialist came to steal their country, after the fall of colonialism, and now the brutal regime of Robert Mugabe.
People are murdered, including naturally born white Zimbabweans, the school system collapse, and all services crash down with the Chinese moving in to reap the benefits of a destroyed nation in dire poverty and despair. The country's leader has been widely accused of ethnic cleansing, orchestrating political violence and serial cheating at the polls.
Millions of the inhabitants are fleeing in all wind directions to escape their own government troups.
How They LeftIn America she goes to school and does very well. But due to the high tuition fees slapped on foreign students, she struggles to get a good education and works illegally to make ends meet. She feels enslaved in a system that might throw her out at any moment.
Look at the children of the land leaving in droves, leaving their own land with bleeding wounds on their bodies and shock on their faces and blood in their hearts and hunger in their stomachs and grief in their footsteps. Leaving their mothers and fathers and children behind, leaving their umbilical cords underneath the soil, leaving the bones of their ancestors in the earth, leaving everything that makes them who and what they are, leaving because it is no longer possible to stay. They will never be the same again because you just cannot be the same once you leave behind who and what you are, you just cannot be the same. Look at them leaving in droves despite knowing they will be welcomed with restraint in those strange lands because they do not belong, knowing they will have to sit on one buttock because they must not sit comfortably lest they be asked to rise and leave, knowing they will speak in dampened whispers because they must not let their voices drown those of the owners of the land, knowing they will have to walk on their toes because they must not leave footprints on the new earth...
Her soul remains in transition forever, since she floats between two worlds which took away her freedom of choice. In Zimbabwe she has no future, neither in America with her illegal status. No prosperity awaits her which ever choice she makes. After thirteen years she feels disconnected from her old- as well as new world.
MY COMMENTS
It is an insightful read and an eye-opening journey through the true suffering of immigrants. I recommend this read to anybody who would like to experience the true feelings and thoughts of people in flight.
ONE LITTLE GRIPE:
The reading was very confusing since dialogue mixed in with the rest of the text without any warning. It made it very difficult to distinguish between conversations and narrative. The method in this madness passed me by. At first it worked, since a nine-year-old girl shared her memories, but then she becomes a grown-up and by the time this tale is told, she is already on her way to college, yet the confusion remained in the text.
However, the underlying sadness of the loss of identity and constant feelings of longing of a displaced person spoke to me. The author captures the perpetual mourning of all first generation immigrants very well. The detailed descriptions of Darling's environment were excellent.
I am glad I read this book about a young girl who had one leg in her motherland, which gave her 'story, swag and soul', and her other leg in America, who gave her the opportunity to tell her story. Her journey gave her hope and strength of character.
NoViolet Buluwayo is the pseudonym of Elizabeth Tshele who changed her name to honor her mother and her home city. 'No Violet' means 'With Violet' in Ndebele.
The title reflects on her change of perception about her country, her new destiny and the changes it all brought in her life. A new name calls for new beginnings and to leave the past behind, however difficult it seems to be. Her generation was born free and cannot blame the devastation on the past, but want to address the problems that was created in their own life times. The implication is that her generation wants to get rid of a leader who ruled for too long and destroyed everything.
It was a good read indeed. I loved this book.
July 27, 2013
NoViolet Bulawayo’s debut novel has just been added to the long list for the 2013 Booker Prize. A short story of hers called “Hitting Budapest” won the 2011 Caine Prize for African Literature and became the first of several astounding chapters in …New Names. The work feels brave and completely fresh--raw even. The perspective, voice, and language held me spellbound.
On Bulawyao’s website is a quote from Chinua Achebe:
Narration begins in the voice of ten-year-old Darling, whose father is away, whose school is closed, whose friends (Bastard, Godknows, Sbho, Stina, and Chipo) scream-sing with her as they run riot through the neighborhoods in search of guavas to steal. Bulawayo’s Darling tells us what they find besides guavas, and it is her words, reactions, and attention that feels real and tells us what we have always wondered: how does a child grow up in a world like Mugabe’s Zimbabwe? What does the world look like and from where do these children acquire knowledge of concepts like “justice,” “fairness,” and “freedom”? Do these concepts include any notion of personal responsibility?
Very quickly in this novel one senses the danger in child’s play. The world is life-threatening, and the children know it. Their play, their home-life, their worship--it all has an edge that makes them brave and vulnerable at the same time. They rely on one another. The chapter “We Need New Names” was another breathtaking high-wire act that left my heart in my mouth. From this point I did not relax my guard with Bulawayo’s book in my hands. It felt explosive.
In “Shhh,” Darling hides the fact that her father has come home and is very ill. When her friends find out, they push their way into Darling’s shack, immediately intuiting that Darling’s father is dying of AIDS. Even Darling hadn’t grasped that—she was angry with her father for having left, and angrier still that he came home with a sickness. But the children face the man lying on the bed and talk openly about death and heaven and then they begin to sing:
Every once in a while Darling will break into our attention with “This is real” or ”Is this even real?” She captures that sense of incredulity we experience when life starts to feel a little ludicrous and outside our control. In the last half of the novel she is a teenaged high-schooler in Detroit, Michigan (Destroyedmichigan). Her outsider status gives her the requisite distance for maximum observation but she retains her need for community. She is continually questioned about, and always questioning, “home.”
This is an exceptional debut and NoViolet Bulawayo has created a fictional world that stuns as it captivates. I remember thinking that Bulawayo and Jesmyn Ward are sisters of the pen, for both have the ability to flay open the skin to get to the “real.” This is a bravura performance. I do wonder, however, if such a performance can be replicated.
On Bulawyao’s website is a quote from Chinua Achebe:
“Let no one be fooled by the fact that we may write in English, for we intend to do unheard of things with it.”It seems an appropriate quote for someone who has taken such liberties with language and point of view.
Narration begins in the voice of ten-year-old Darling, whose father is away, whose school is closed, whose friends (Bastard, Godknows, Sbho, Stina, and Chipo) scream-sing with her as they run riot through the neighborhoods in search of guavas to steal. Bulawayo’s Darling tells us what they find besides guavas, and it is her words, reactions, and attention that feels real and tells us what we have always wondered: how does a child grow up in a world like Mugabe’s Zimbabwe? What does the world look like and from where do these children acquire knowledge of concepts like “justice,” “fairness,” and “freedom”? Do these concepts include any notion of personal responsibility?
Very quickly in this novel one senses the danger in child’s play. The world is life-threatening, and the children know it. Their play, their home-life, their worship--it all has an edge that makes them brave and vulnerable at the same time. They rely on one another. The chapter “We Need New Names” was another breathtaking high-wire act that left my heart in my mouth. From this point I did not relax my guard with Bulawayo’s book in my hands. It felt explosive.
In “Shhh,” Darling hides the fact that her father has come home and is very ill. When her friends find out, they push their way into Darling’s shack, immediately intuiting that Darling’s father is dying of AIDS. Even Darling hadn’t grasped that—she was angry with her father for having left, and angrier still that he came home with a sickness. But the children face the man lying on the bed and talk openly about death and heaven and then they begin to sing:
"When Godknows starts singing Jobho, Sbho joins in and we listen to them sing it for a while and then we’re all scratching our bodies and singing it because Jobho is a song that leaves you with no choice but to scratch your body the way that sick man Job did in the Bible, lying there scratching his itching wounds when God was busy torturing him just to play with him to see if he had faith. Jobho makes you call out to heaven even though you know God is occupied with better things and will not even look your way. Jobho makes you point your forefinger to the sky and sing at the top of your voice. We itch and we scratch and we point and we itch again and we fill the shack with song.That passage ripped my heart out.
Then Stina reaches and takes Father’s hand and start moving it to the song, and Bastard moves the other hand. I reach out and touch him too because I have never really touched him ever since he came and this is what I must do now because how will it look when everybody is touching him and I am not? We all look at one another and smile-sing because we are touching him, just touching him all over like he is a beautiful plaything we have just rescued from the trash. He feels like dry wood in my hands, but there is a strange light in his sunken eyes, like he has swallowed the sun.”
Every once in a while Darling will break into our attention with “This is real” or ”Is this even real?” She captures that sense of incredulity we experience when life starts to feel a little ludicrous and outside our control. In the last half of the novel she is a teenaged high-schooler in Detroit, Michigan (Destroyedmichigan). Her outsider status gives her the requisite distance for maximum observation but she retains her need for community. She is continually questioned about, and always questioning, “home.”
This is an exceptional debut and NoViolet Bulawayo has created a fictional world that stuns as it captivates. I remember thinking that Bulawayo and Jesmyn Ward are sisters of the pen, for both have the ability to flay open the skin to get to the “real.” This is a bravura performance. I do wonder, however, if such a performance can be replicated.
January 12, 2016
2.5 stars
I'm really sad because this book started off with so much promise, but it completely lost me in the second half. My main issue with this book is that Bulawayo didn't leave the reader with any ideas to develop on their own. She uses her characters as mouthpieces for her ideologies--not that I disagree with any of her statements--which makes for a rather pedantic piece of fiction. If I had wanted these themes & messages delivered in the way she delivers them, I would've read some non-fiction essays about immigration, diaspora, disappointment, etc.
Aside from the those elements, the writing is absolutely beautiful. There's no doubt Bulawayo knows how to craft a sentence. She has a magnificent turn of phrase and uses similes in an endearing and remarkable way without being overbearing. Though the story is less of a novel than vignettes into a girl's life as she grows up in Zimbabwe and moves to the U.S. There's no through-line for the plot at all. I expected a lot more from this, and unfortunately, it just didn't deliver.
I'm really sad because this book started off with so much promise, but it completely lost me in the second half. My main issue with this book is that Bulawayo didn't leave the reader with any ideas to develop on their own. She uses her characters as mouthpieces for her ideologies--not that I disagree with any of her statements--which makes for a rather pedantic piece of fiction. If I had wanted these themes & messages delivered in the way she delivers them, I would've read some non-fiction essays about immigration, diaspora, disappointment, etc.
Aside from the those elements, the writing is absolutely beautiful. There's no doubt Bulawayo knows how to craft a sentence. She has a magnificent turn of phrase and uses similes in an endearing and remarkable way without being overbearing. Though the story is less of a novel than vignettes into a girl's life as she grows up in Zimbabwe and moves to the U.S. There's no through-line for the plot at all. I expected a lot more from this, and unfortunately, it just didn't deliver.
May 21, 2015
This book was chosen as 'Book of The Year"... Here in San Jose, California.
The story is told through the eyes of a 10 year old girl named'Darling', who first grew up in Zimbabwe.
The first half of the book she lives in the slum called Paradise.
Darling and her friends play in the streets...steal guavas... Look for other food.
Living with extreme poverty...and daily life difficulties ..,Darling seems to accept her life.
Her friends...community...are still her home. It's what she knows.
During the second half of the book, when Darling immigrates to America, we begin to see some benefits.. yet.. We also see what she has lost.
The language - perhaps translated- was A little difficult. Mostly, I could figure out what was being said... but I felt like I may have missed a little of the translation from some of the African words from how some of the African words were used as verbs, and nouns.
I appreciated this book. Once again, we witness the culture shock, the challenges of adjusting and all aspects of daily living.
Yet... I felt the storytelling itself..,or maybe it was the structure in writing...was at times emotionally flat.... ( in the writing delivery... not in actual situation)
This is a small fast read. I liked it...but didn't love it.
Yet... I admire the authors passion to this subject. She will be one of the authors present at the Bay Area 2 day festival in Berkeley the first weekend in June.
The story is told through the eyes of a 10 year old girl named'Darling', who first grew up in Zimbabwe.
The first half of the book she lives in the slum called Paradise.
Darling and her friends play in the streets...steal guavas... Look for other food.
Living with extreme poverty...and daily life difficulties ..,Darling seems to accept her life.
Her friends...community...are still her home. It's what she knows.
During the second half of the book, when Darling immigrates to America, we begin to see some benefits.. yet.. We also see what she has lost.
The language - perhaps translated- was A little difficult. Mostly, I could figure out what was being said... but I felt like I may have missed a little of the translation from some of the African words from how some of the African words were used as verbs, and nouns.
I appreciated this book. Once again, we witness the culture shock, the challenges of adjusting and all aspects of daily living.
Yet... I felt the storytelling itself..,or maybe it was the structure in writing...was at times emotionally flat.... ( in the writing delivery... not in actual situation)
This is a small fast read. I liked it...but didn't love it.
Yet... I admire the authors passion to this subject. She will be one of the authors present at the Bay Area 2 day festival in Berkeley the first weekend in June.
February 10, 2023
Instagram || Twitter || Facebook || Amazon || Pinterest
DNF @ 17%
The start of this book was really interesting but the writing style just didn't work for me. The lack of dialogue tags was really distracting and I didn't feel like the book was straightforward enough that I could easily follow along without them. The portrayal of "post"-colonialist Zimbabwe and its corruption and lingering cultural biases had a lot of potential, and I love a good coming of age story, but I was not a fan of the prose.
2 stars
May 1, 2013
I have always wanted to read myself in contemporary Zimbabwean
literature. We Need New Names does just that for me and more. It
evokes songs of my childhood, games we played and other familiar
memories such as falling off a neighbour's guava tree. And nobody who
has ever lived in a township forgets - the buzzy streets, the jostling
humanity, the smells and sounds, the vivacity and the infinite
variety.
NoViolet Bulawayo harnesses all her creative energy and formidable
command of craft to produce a debut novel full of rhythm and much
hope.
Of late, the Zimbabwean novel has been suffering a protracted growth.
But in NoViolet Bulawayo we witness the imaginative maturity of the
born-free generation, Zimbabwe's post-colonial offspring. This is a
generation whose maturation is evidently coming to light (Lawrence
Hoba, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, and Phillip Chidavaenzi). Their sensibility
and world outlook is shaped by different historical forces that shaped
early Zimbabwean writing.
At some point the political crisis paralysed the Zimbabwean
imagination. We began to believe and recycle the stock images of
ourselves that the world created for us. New Zimbabwean literature
needs deeper exploration of the human psyche and stripping away all
those easy attitudes we have been fed for so long like
black-versus-white, reactionary-versus-progressive, Zanu PF versus
MDC, dragging literature into that shallow battlefield. We need to
explore those reasons that affect our day-to-day dreams, longings and
needs.
NoViolet Bulawayo steps up at the right time to produce a novel
written with so much intimacy and care. The characters that people the
book are not mere cardboard cut outs strutting lifelessly through the
pages, but “real” people who though sometimes weighed down by the
neglect and insult of the world, proclaim insistently their
determination to survive, to step out of the shadows and be counted.
Every character evolves as the book progresses, turning into someone
the reader had not quite expected - for instance, the actions of these
ordinary children, Darling and her small gang, are spontaneous and
impulsive, mere reactions to internal and external forces.
And there are reminiscences of Yvonne Vera in the young writer’s
confidence and technique. It is easy to forget this is a first book
because of the accomplished skills she exhibits that are so hauntingly
assured. This specifically Zimbabwean story will surely have a lot of
resonance for many African readers. Though evoking a specific time and
place vivid in its particulars, NoViolet Bulawayo draws universal
lessons for all.
Indeed, We Need New Names is a disarmingly playful, devastatingly
candid novel that is at once classic and utterly original, with a
power all on its own. The narrative is witty, multi-layered,
intricately constructed, deeply informed, elegantly written. We Need
New Names is a GREAT beginning to NoViolet Bulawayo's literary career
and a significant contribution to Zimbabwean literature.
literature. We Need New Names does just that for me and more. It
evokes songs of my childhood, games we played and other familiar
memories such as falling off a neighbour's guava tree. And nobody who
has ever lived in a township forgets - the buzzy streets, the jostling
humanity, the smells and sounds, the vivacity and the infinite
variety.
NoViolet Bulawayo harnesses all her creative energy and formidable
command of craft to produce a debut novel full of rhythm and much
hope.
Of late, the Zimbabwean novel has been suffering a protracted growth.
But in NoViolet Bulawayo we witness the imaginative maturity of the
born-free generation, Zimbabwe's post-colonial offspring. This is a
generation whose maturation is evidently coming to light (Lawrence
Hoba, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma, and Phillip Chidavaenzi). Their sensibility
and world outlook is shaped by different historical forces that shaped
early Zimbabwean writing.
At some point the political crisis paralysed the Zimbabwean
imagination. We began to believe and recycle the stock images of
ourselves that the world created for us. New Zimbabwean literature
needs deeper exploration of the human psyche and stripping away all
those easy attitudes we have been fed for so long like
black-versus-white, reactionary-versus-progressive, Zanu PF versus
MDC, dragging literature into that shallow battlefield. We need to
explore those reasons that affect our day-to-day dreams, longings and
needs.
NoViolet Bulawayo steps up at the right time to produce a novel
written with so much intimacy and care. The characters that people the
book are not mere cardboard cut outs strutting lifelessly through the
pages, but “real” people who though sometimes weighed down by the
neglect and insult of the world, proclaim insistently their
determination to survive, to step out of the shadows and be counted.
Every character evolves as the book progresses, turning into someone
the reader had not quite expected - for instance, the actions of these
ordinary children, Darling and her small gang, are spontaneous and
impulsive, mere reactions to internal and external forces.
And there are reminiscences of Yvonne Vera in the young writer’s
confidence and technique. It is easy to forget this is a first book
because of the accomplished skills she exhibits that are so hauntingly
assured. This specifically Zimbabwean story will surely have a lot of
resonance for many African readers. Though evoking a specific time and
place vivid in its particulars, NoViolet Bulawayo draws universal
lessons for all.
Indeed, We Need New Names is a disarmingly playful, devastatingly
candid novel that is at once classic and utterly original, with a
power all on its own. The narrative is witty, multi-layered,
intricately constructed, deeply informed, elegantly written. We Need
New Names is a GREAT beginning to NoViolet Bulawayo's literary career
and a significant contribution to Zimbabwean literature.
April 3, 2024
Content Warnings: Colonialism, racism, incest/child sexual abuse, forced pregnancy, religious trauma, animal cruelty/dog death
Firstly, I quote Yoda:
A particularly wonderful voice to tell a story through. The POV of a child can convey such complex ideas in simple words, navigating life's cruelties with an innocence that at once softens their blow, yet makes the hurt keener.
For the reader understands better than the character, and knows they will soon learn, too.
This excellent perspective NoViolet Bulawayo gives to us in main character Darling, who we meet as a 10-year-old in Zimbabwe. Her school recently shut down as the teachers left the country for opportunities with better pay, so she and her close-knit group of friends spend their days exploring their home. Theirs is an impoverished community called "Paradise", built by refugees after the Mugabe's military police razed their villages. They are isolated, feeling keenly the aftermath of colonialism, living on the outskirts of wealthier communities, the remnants of Rhodesia, still populated by whites.
But they still find joy in their home. Joy in the company of each other.
Together, they remark on the current state of, not just their country, but the world. It's 2008 and their favorite game is "find Bin Laden". They go together to the richer neighborhoods to steal fruits, and make plans for their futures: To live in brick houses. To drive a Lamborghini. To move to South Africa, Dubai, Canada. And, for Darling, America, where her aunt already lives.
And they see many shocking things. Darling still struggles with nightmares of her village's destruction. She and her friends find the corpse of a woman who would sooner hang herself than live with AIDS. They watch gang attacks. Watch their families get exploited by the local Christian church. Grapple with their friend's forced pregnancy at age 11. Get fetishized by white tourists, eager to snap pictures of them in their poverty.
Explored in episodes, each slice of life leads to Darling's move with her Aunt to America. In Michigan, she struggles through her first Midwest winter. White adults expect her to have expertise in all matters on the continent of Africa, talking to her of Congo as if it is only a minute's walk from her Zimbabwe. She goes to public school, makes new American friends. Becomes a teenager, watches porn. Watches High School Musical and That's So Raven on Disney Channel. Goes to the mall. Goes to Borders (R.I.P.)
Keeps up with aughts icons like Victoria Beckham and Angelina Jolie.
And loses more and more touch with her home, and the people there. She achieves some semblance of the American dream, a pretty regular American teenager experience, but its at a significant cost. She wanted so much to go to the U.S. when she was young, and only realizes when she's there how hard it will be to ever return again.
A brilliant novel. 5/5.
Firstly, I quote Yoda:
A particularly wonderful voice to tell a story through. The POV of a child can convey such complex ideas in simple words, navigating life's cruelties with an innocence that at once softens their blow, yet makes the hurt keener.
For the reader understands better than the character, and knows they will soon learn, too.
This excellent perspective NoViolet Bulawayo gives to us in main character Darling, who we meet as a 10-year-old in Zimbabwe. Her school recently shut down as the teachers left the country for opportunities with better pay, so she and her close-knit group of friends spend their days exploring their home. Theirs is an impoverished community called "Paradise", built by refugees after the Mugabe's military police razed their villages. They are isolated, feeling keenly the aftermath of colonialism, living on the outskirts of wealthier communities, the remnants of Rhodesia, still populated by whites.
But they still find joy in their home. Joy in the company of each other.
Together, they remark on the current state of, not just their country, but the world. It's 2008 and their favorite game is "find Bin Laden". They go together to the richer neighborhoods to steal fruits, and make plans for their futures: To live in brick houses. To drive a Lamborghini. To move to South Africa, Dubai, Canada. And, for Darling, America, where her aunt already lives.
And they see many shocking things. Darling still struggles with nightmares of her village's destruction. She and her friends find the corpse of a woman who would sooner hang herself than live with AIDS. They watch gang attacks. Watch their families get exploited by the local Christian church. Grapple with their friend's forced pregnancy at age 11. Get fetishized by white tourists, eager to snap pictures of them in their poverty.
Explored in episodes, each slice of life leads to Darling's move with her Aunt to America. In Michigan, she struggles through her first Midwest winter. White adults expect her to have expertise in all matters on the continent of Africa, talking to her of Congo as if it is only a minute's walk from her Zimbabwe. She goes to public school, makes new American friends. Becomes a teenager, watches porn. Watches High School Musical and That's So Raven on Disney Channel. Goes to the mall. Goes to Borders (R.I.P.)
Keeps up with aughts icons like Victoria Beckham and Angelina Jolie.
And loses more and more touch with her home, and the people there. She achieves some semblance of the American dream, a pretty regular American teenager experience, but its at a significant cost. She wanted so much to go to the U.S. when she was young, and only realizes when she's there how hard it will be to ever return again.
A brilliant novel. 5/5.
March 2, 2016
Darling is 10-she lives in a shantytown in Zimbabwe. Like any child, she plays with her friends but their games are fraught with danger. They are surrounded by violence that can explode at any time. Just a few years earlier, Darling lived in a real house and her parents had good jobs. Now the political situation has changed and their homes were bulldozed and they were forced into this makeshift village.
But Darling is going to leave-she has an aunt in the United States ("Destroyedmichygan"). And so Darling is sent away to make a new life for herself, uprooted from the land and people she knows like so many other people desperate to find a better life. Or at least a life with enough food and the promised of better things.
"I am remembering the taste of all these things but remembering is not tasting, and it is painful."
These are a teenage Darling's words as she struggles to assimilate into her new country. There is more food but it lacks the flavor of the food she grew up on. There is a house but all the familiar customs of home are missing. Darling is no longer part of the country she left but, like so many immigrants, she continues to feel like a stranger in her new one.
The writing in this book is brilliant. NoViolet Bulawayo almost chants certain litanies in the book when the voice becomes "we" and we hear the voices of the dispossessed. Her children are full of life-not necessarily likable but real. The images are sometimes disturbing. Darling is studying biology but can't bear looking at the pictures of wounds-maybe because her own are too raw as are those of the country she has had to leave.
There were moments reading this book that I literally gasped from shock. The work is one of the most vibrant texts i've ever read. I felt as though I'd really come closer to someone's life.
But Darling is going to leave-she has an aunt in the United States ("Destroyedmichygan"). And so Darling is sent away to make a new life for herself, uprooted from the land and people she knows like so many other people desperate to find a better life. Or at least a life with enough food and the promised of better things.
"I am remembering the taste of all these things but remembering is not tasting, and it is painful."
These are a teenage Darling's words as she struggles to assimilate into her new country. There is more food but it lacks the flavor of the food she grew up on. There is a house but all the familiar customs of home are missing. Darling is no longer part of the country she left but, like so many immigrants, she continues to feel like a stranger in her new one.
The writing in this book is brilliant. NoViolet Bulawayo almost chants certain litanies in the book when the voice becomes "we" and we hear the voices of the dispossessed. Her children are full of life-not necessarily likable but real. The images are sometimes disturbing. Darling is studying biology but can't bear looking at the pictures of wounds-maybe because her own are too raw as are those of the country she has had to leave.
There were moments reading this book that I literally gasped from shock. The work is one of the most vibrant texts i've ever read. I felt as though I'd really come closer to someone's life.
December 29, 2014
This had been on my radar for a while, but due to a few disappointing reviews I doubt I would have bothered with it if I hadn't been reading the Booker longlist. And whilst the book's not perfect, it was a great deal better than I'd been led to believe.
The freshness of the voice hit me from the first page. Darling, the young Zimbabwean narrator is on the way to steal guavas from a rich area with her friends, says We didn't eat this morning and my stomach feels like somebody took a shovel and dug everything out. A simile you can feel.
Recently I've noticed a few things that predispose me to like a contemporary novel, including characters from a social class different from the one I grew up in, and vivid metaphors which germinate from the story's setting. We Need New Names has both in abundance. Darling is too immersed in her world, doesn't know enough that's different, to describe it in a sensationalist way. That "this is how it is" voice, hearing things on someone else's terms with little overt judgement or analysis is very appealing, and which I often find makes so-called difficult subjects quite easy to read about.
We Need New Names moves so much faster, is more political and more immediate than Ghana Must Go another 2013 debut novel by a young woman with an African background and an Ivy League education. Bulawayo lived in Zimbabwe till she was 18 and she's used that experience to make this book way more interesting than Selasi's slow upper-middle class American family saga with a few scenes in Africa. (Another obvious new release to compare would be Americanah, which I haven't read.)
The most frequent criticism of this book I've seen is that it goes wrong in the second half when Darling goes to live with her aunt in America. I really can't see where this is coming from. The episodic structure is so similar to the Zimbabwe half for starters. There is something less zingy about its tone but that reflects the disagreeable Michigan weather, the amount of time spent indoors and the whole failed-American-dream thang. (Zimbabwe: local people killed with machetes over politics; USA: local people killed with guns because of money or general violent tendencies. Zimbabwe: 11 year old gets pregnant and too few people care; USA: kids regularly watch hard porn online whilst parents are at work. The jobs aren't much better for illegal immigrants in America, but at least there's organised education, sanitation, abundant food, abundant opportunities for consumer debt, and the inspiration of a young black president. And in both countries, friends to have adventures with.)
There were a few faults that could have been easily sorted out through editing. Inconsistent chronology, and stylistic tics like overuse of 'verbing and verbing and verbing' and of the Achebe-allusion "things fall apart". Cut these by half and they'd have still been distinctive and memorable. The book could have done with footnotes, especially for the phrases in Ndebele, and possibly (like A Tale for the Time Being) for other points too. I enjoyed looking things up online and now know a bit more about African politicians and musicians - but it's not always convenient to google stuff when reading.
We Need New Names had some totally unfussy reflection on the differences and kinships between black American / Ebonics culture and recently-arrived immigrants from Africa. Something I'd heard a little about in a British context but not enough. And a great scene about trying to communicate with officialdom in English as a foreign language which made me think & was reminiscent of A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers.
...because you have to do all this [preparation], when you get to the final step, something strange has happened and you speak the way a drunk walks. And because you are speaking like falling, it's as if you are an idiot...Those who speak only English are busy looking at your falling instead of paying attention to what you are saying.
The Guardian review of this book asks Has the Caine prize [for African writing, which NoViolet Bulawayo won in 2011] created an African aesthetic of suffering? This sounds like a question worth considering, one which I don't have sufficient knowledge to answer. But Bulawayo addresses the wider issue - of what people think and show and want to hear about Africa - to an extent through her narrative: in scenes of white western journalists Darling and her friends encounter in Zimbabwe, and near the end when she phones one of her old friends who stayed there. You think watching on BBC means you know what is going on? No you don't my friend, it's the wound that knows the texture of the pain; it's us who stayed here feeling the real suffering, it's us who stayed here who have the right to say anything. As well as a critique of the author as self-appointed spokesperson this could allude to the way that a lot of internationally recognised African writing comes from authors who no longer live on the continent. I haven't read a lot of African fiction, so this is a tentative opinion on Bulawayo's response to literary stereotype-mongering.
A very readable book which gave me quite a bit to think about - glad I gave it a go after all. The quotes I've used don't reflect the freewheeling sense of adventure in We Need New Names/, which isn't a tediously worthy book as I may have made it sound here - it's as vibrant as its cover.
The freshness of the voice hit me from the first page. Darling, the young Zimbabwean narrator is on the way to steal guavas from a rich area with her friends, says We didn't eat this morning and my stomach feels like somebody took a shovel and dug everything out. A simile you can feel.
Recently I've noticed a few things that predispose me to like a contemporary novel, including characters from a social class different from the one I grew up in, and vivid metaphors which germinate from the story's setting. We Need New Names has both in abundance. Darling is too immersed in her world, doesn't know enough that's different, to describe it in a sensationalist way. That "this is how it is" voice, hearing things on someone else's terms with little overt judgement or analysis is very appealing, and which I often find makes so-called difficult subjects quite easy to read about.
We Need New Names moves so much faster, is more political and more immediate than Ghana Must Go another 2013 debut novel by a young woman with an African background and an Ivy League education. Bulawayo lived in Zimbabwe till she was 18 and she's used that experience to make this book way more interesting than Selasi's slow upper-middle class American family saga with a few scenes in Africa. (Another obvious new release to compare would be Americanah, which I haven't read.)
The most frequent criticism of this book I've seen is that it goes wrong in the second half when Darling goes to live with her aunt in America. I really can't see where this is coming from. The episodic structure is so similar to the Zimbabwe half for starters. There is something less zingy about its tone but that reflects the disagreeable Michigan weather, the amount of time spent indoors and the whole failed-American-dream thang. (Zimbabwe: local people killed with machetes over politics; USA: local people killed with guns because of money or general violent tendencies. Zimbabwe: 11 year old gets pregnant and too few people care; USA: kids regularly watch hard porn online whilst parents are at work. The jobs aren't much better for illegal immigrants in America, but at least there's organised education, sanitation, abundant food, abundant opportunities for consumer debt, and the inspiration of a young black president. And in both countries, friends to have adventures with.)
There were a few faults that could have been easily sorted out through editing. Inconsistent chronology, and stylistic tics like overuse of 'verbing and verbing and verbing' and of the Achebe-allusion "things fall apart". Cut these by half and they'd have still been distinctive and memorable. The book could have done with footnotes, especially for the phrases in Ndebele, and possibly (like A Tale for the Time Being) for other points too. I enjoyed looking things up online and now know a bit more about African politicians and musicians - but it's not always convenient to google stuff when reading.
We Need New Names had some totally unfussy reflection on the differences and kinships between black American / Ebonics culture and recently-arrived immigrants from Africa. Something I'd heard a little about in a British context but not enough. And a great scene about trying to communicate with officialdom in English as a foreign language which made me think & was reminiscent of A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary for Lovers.
...because you have to do all this [preparation], when you get to the final step, something strange has happened and you speak the way a drunk walks. And because you are speaking like falling, it's as if you are an idiot...Those who speak only English are busy looking at your falling instead of paying attention to what you are saying.
The Guardian review of this book asks Has the Caine prize [for African writing, which NoViolet Bulawayo won in 2011] created an African aesthetic of suffering? This sounds like a question worth considering, one which I don't have sufficient knowledge to answer. But Bulawayo addresses the wider issue - of what people think and show and want to hear about Africa - to an extent through her narrative: in scenes of white western journalists Darling and her friends encounter in Zimbabwe, and near the end when she phones one of her old friends who stayed there. You think watching on BBC means you know what is going on? No you don't my friend, it's the wound that knows the texture of the pain; it's us who stayed here feeling the real suffering, it's us who stayed here who have the right to say anything. As well as a critique of the author as self-appointed spokesperson this could allude to the way that a lot of internationally recognised African writing comes from authors who no longer live on the continent. I haven't read a lot of African fiction, so this is a tentative opinion on Bulawayo's response to literary stereotype-mongering.
A very readable book which gave me quite a bit to think about - glad I gave it a go after all. The quotes I've used don't reflect the freewheeling sense of adventure in We Need New Names/, which isn't a tediously worthy book as I may have made it sound here - it's as vibrant as its cover.
July 23, 2020
La historia se sitúa en un lugar llamado Paraíso. Aquí, a través de un grupo de niños, conoceremos las circunstancias de este lugar, la problemática de la hambruna en África y los sueños y expectativas de conseguir vivir en lugares mejores que tienen estos niños. La novela está dividida en dos mitades: por una parte la infancia de Darling en Paraíso, y por otra parte, su vida en Estados Unidos y el choque de cultura que conlleva.
La protagonista y narradora, Darling, es una niña de 10 años que vive con su abula y su madre. Su padre se marchó hace muchos años a Sudáfrica y no ha vuelto a dar señales de vida. Pasa sus días con su grupo de amigos, entre juegos e ir a zonas más ricas del lugar donde viven para robar guayabas. Todos estos niños, sueñan con conocer otros mundos, pero Darling sabe que lo conseguirá, ya que su tía Fostalina ha prometido llevársela a Estados Unidos.
En esta segunda mitad, con una Darling cada vez más adulta, iremos viendo como todas esas expectativas de hacer dinero, y de tener una vida mejor, no es tan fácil, ni tan realista como creía de pequeña. Darling, no se siente integrada, está destinada a los peores trabajos y mal remunerados. La gente la trata diferente por venir de África, tanto los abiertamente racistas, como la gente que trata de interesarse por su país. El choque de culturas también es demasiado para ella.
Soy un lector que disfruta tremendamente las historias donde hay choque entre diferentes culturas, ya que me da esa sensación de aprendizaje y enseñanza, que es uno de los motivos por los que más disfruto leyendo. Pero en esta novela me ha ocurrido algo extraño. La primera parte con Darling de pequeña y disfrutando con sus amigos, me ha encantado. Aún con la penuria del lugar, la he sentido muy tierna y me dio mucha pena acabarla. Sin embargo, la trama de Darling en América, que a priori me parecía lo más interesante, me ha cojeado un poco. Entiendo la idea, y lo que te quiere contar, y me parece interesante. Pero quizás, no ha sabido contarlo de una manera que te sigan interesando los personajes. O, al menos, esa fue mi sensación.
La protagonista y narradora, Darling, es una niña de 10 años que vive con su abula y su madre. Su padre se marchó hace muchos años a Sudáfrica y no ha vuelto a dar señales de vida. Pasa sus días con su grupo de amigos, entre juegos e ir a zonas más ricas del lugar donde viven para robar guayabas. Todos estos niños, sueñan con conocer otros mundos, pero Darling sabe que lo conseguirá, ya que su tía Fostalina ha prometido llevársela a Estados Unidos.
En esta segunda mitad, con una Darling cada vez más adulta, iremos viendo como todas esas expectativas de hacer dinero, y de tener una vida mejor, no es tan fácil, ni tan realista como creía de pequeña. Darling, no se siente integrada, está destinada a los peores trabajos y mal remunerados. La gente la trata diferente por venir de África, tanto los abiertamente racistas, como la gente que trata de interesarse por su país. El choque de culturas también es demasiado para ella.
Soy un lector que disfruta tremendamente las historias donde hay choque entre diferentes culturas, ya que me da esa sensación de aprendizaje y enseñanza, que es uno de los motivos por los que más disfruto leyendo. Pero en esta novela me ha ocurrido algo extraño. La primera parte con Darling de pequeña y disfrutando con sus amigos, me ha encantado. Aún con la penuria del lugar, la he sentido muy tierna y me dio mucha pena acabarla. Sin embargo, la trama de Darling en América, que a priori me parecía lo más interesante, me ha cojeado un poco. Entiendo la idea, y lo que te quiere contar, y me parece interesante. Pero quizás, no ha sabido contarlo de una manera que te sigan interesando los personajes. O, al menos, esa fue mi sensación.
November 3, 2013
This book was really a disappointment after I read so many positive reviews. I have read many books about southern Africa in particular, and this one really lacked direction and a compelling heroine. The first half of the book is set in a small village in Zimbabwe, and, while there is evidence of terrible things happening, the danger is told about in more of an abstract way. I accepted that, because Darling, the main character, is only 11 or so and the novel is told exclusively with her voice. Whether it was angry black mobs, the AIDS epidemic, the lack of education among the young, or the devastating poverty, it was always filtered through the eyes of children. So when Darling goes to America to live with an aunt (very little is said about her actual departure or how she feels about it), I did expect more than just 140 pages of disdain for everything America. Yes, disdain. Darling seems to just feel sorry for herself, being subjected to stupid Americans, their TV, pornography, ignorance and bad speech. While there is evidence of some assimilation, mostly she pines away for the endless days she used to spend stealing guavas from wealthy homes back in Zimbabwe. The ending of this book shows very little growth emotionally for the main character, and I completely lost patience with this girl who is NOT darling in any way.
June 17, 2013
More like 3.5 stars...the beginning while raw and realistic was slow for me...the second half picked up and was more engaging. Not sure that I would classify this as a novel as the plot wasn't linear but seemed more like a group of short stories meshed together. Also, the character development wasn't flushed out for some of the characters...the pregnant friend, the dying father, the crazy uncle...as soon as their stories began they ended. Enjoyed reading about the cultural, food, family, childrearing nuances...but the storyline also saddened me. Seems there isn't a country in Africa without strife and turmoil and so many Africans view America as the promised land...but once they're here and spent time they realize that while life might be slightly better the living is hard and they are never assimilated into this country or accepted.
April 3, 2016
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.
3.5 stars. I loved that the kids in the story were typical kids and just adapted to their circumstances and kept on playing their made-up games. The author definitely has a sense of humour and you can see this in the names she chose for these kids (Bastard, Godknows etc), but this was still a very dark and unsettling book. Darling (the main character's) feelings on moving to America were complex, and for me this part of the book was even sadder than the first half. The writing was very different from anything else I've read before, and although there were many moments of absolute genius, for me it was inconsistent. This is totally understandable as it was her debut novel, and I am looking forward to her next book.
The Story: We Need New Names is the 2013 debut novel of expatriate Zimbabwean writer NoViolet Bulawayo. A coming-of-age story, it tells of the life of a young girl named Darling, first as a ten-year-old in Zimbabwe, and later as a teenager in the Midwest United States. We Need New Names was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize (2013), the Guardian First Book Award shortlist (2013),and a Barnes & Noble Discover Award finalist (2013).
January 26, 2019
More a collection of stories and scenes than a straightforward novel but Darling's voice is bold and convincing (stronger in the Zimbabwe-part than after she has moved to the US).
June 9, 2021
We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo unfolds in the first-person point of view of ten-year old Darling in Zimbabwe. Darling lives in a shanty town, ironically named Paradise. She is without consistent adult supervision and spends her time running riot with her gang of friends, playing games, stealing guavas, supporting each other, calling each other names, and generally getting into mischief.
Darling and her young friends suffer from bouts of hunger due to food shortages. They are surrounded by tragedy and violence: a young woman hangs from a tree; a mob invades the home of a white couple, destroys their possessions, and defecates on their floor; Darling’s father dies of AIDS; a man is brutally beaten and ferreted away by the authorities. Darling’s young friend is raped by her grandfather and now carries his child. The children are feral, dirty, hungry, barefoot, and clothed in tatters. Despite these horrendous hardships, Darling’s voice is fresh, young, and engaging. She is astute, sensitive, resilient, street smart, and with a keen eye for observation and an ability to decipher the moods of adults. She can also be very funny.
With no transition, the second half of the novel finds Darling living with her aunt in Michigan. She is torn between adjusting to her new environment and homesickness. She dislikes the intense cold and snow of Michigan but is gratified by the abundance and availability of food. She learns life in America has its benefits as well as its disappointments. Constantly reminded of her outsider status while living in fear of deportation because she is an illegal immigrant, Darling adopts the language and mannerisms of an American teenager to blend in with her new environment.
The plot structure of the novel is episodic in nature. The accumulation of events in Zimbabwe eventually coalesce to form a picture of life there. Darling does not shy away from describing the hardships. Her feelings of humiliation when aid workers take photos of the children covered in dirt and wearing torn clothing is poignant. The children tolerate the embarrassment and accommodate with smiles in exchange for gifts. But despite its challenges, Zimbabwe provides Darling with a sense of belonging, a community, and friends with whom she shares common experiences—qualities she doesn’t fully come to value until they are no longer available to her. This section throbs with vitality and energy.
The second section of the book lacks the vibrancy and immediacy of the opening half. Darling seems to drift aimlessly, recording one experience after another. The series of episodes chart her sense of alienation in America as well as her growing estrangement from family and friends in Zimbabwe. She straddles between two cultures and feels the pain of being an outsider in both. She gradually realizes she is a displaced individual who no longer has a place to call home.
Bulawayo skillfully captures the intensity and communal life in Zimbabwe with vivid details and realistic dialogue. And through Darling, she captures the alienation of a first-generation immigrant torn between two cultures. Darling must abandon her old identity and adopt a new one, a new beginning and that calls for new names.
Recommended.
My book reviews are also available at www.tamaraaghajaffar.com
Darling and her young friends suffer from bouts of hunger due to food shortages. They are surrounded by tragedy and violence: a young woman hangs from a tree; a mob invades the home of a white couple, destroys their possessions, and defecates on their floor; Darling’s father dies of AIDS; a man is brutally beaten and ferreted away by the authorities. Darling’s young friend is raped by her grandfather and now carries his child. The children are feral, dirty, hungry, barefoot, and clothed in tatters. Despite these horrendous hardships, Darling’s voice is fresh, young, and engaging. She is astute, sensitive, resilient, street smart, and with a keen eye for observation and an ability to decipher the moods of adults. She can also be very funny.
With no transition, the second half of the novel finds Darling living with her aunt in Michigan. She is torn between adjusting to her new environment and homesickness. She dislikes the intense cold and snow of Michigan but is gratified by the abundance and availability of food. She learns life in America has its benefits as well as its disappointments. Constantly reminded of her outsider status while living in fear of deportation because she is an illegal immigrant, Darling adopts the language and mannerisms of an American teenager to blend in with her new environment.
The plot structure of the novel is episodic in nature. The accumulation of events in Zimbabwe eventually coalesce to form a picture of life there. Darling does not shy away from describing the hardships. Her feelings of humiliation when aid workers take photos of the children covered in dirt and wearing torn clothing is poignant. The children tolerate the embarrassment and accommodate with smiles in exchange for gifts. But despite its challenges, Zimbabwe provides Darling with a sense of belonging, a community, and friends with whom she shares common experiences—qualities she doesn’t fully come to value until they are no longer available to her. This section throbs with vitality and energy.
The second section of the book lacks the vibrancy and immediacy of the opening half. Darling seems to drift aimlessly, recording one experience after another. The series of episodes chart her sense of alienation in America as well as her growing estrangement from family and friends in Zimbabwe. She straddles between two cultures and feels the pain of being an outsider in both. She gradually realizes she is a displaced individual who no longer has a place to call home.
Bulawayo skillfully captures the intensity and communal life in Zimbabwe with vivid details and realistic dialogue. And through Darling, she captures the alienation of a first-generation immigrant torn between two cultures. Darling must abandon her old identity and adopt a new one, a new beginning and that calls for new names.
Recommended.
My book reviews are also available at www.tamaraaghajaffar.com
August 24, 2016
This is one of those novels that's either going to hit you right or...not. And boy did it ever hit me right. The first compliment I'll give it is that it's easily my favorite piece of African fiction, and certainly much more successful and powerful than an overly praised novel about some Nigerian anglers that came out last year. But I digress.
I want to go bigger, though: if Bulawayo builds on the promise of this deeply affecting debut novel, she might just become one of my favorite writers, period.
The unnamed country here is Zimbabwe, fairly close to the present day, in the advanced stages of sociopolitical meltdown under Mugabe's ham-handed iron-fisted rule. Darling is a ten-year-old girl living in a shantytown called--note the irony--Paradise after its residents were brutally displaced from their middle class neighborhood.
Darling and her group of friends--with glorious-sounding names, such as Godknows, Bastard, Sbho, and Chipo--have no school to go to anymore, and are almost always unsupervised and hungry. They roam through nearby affluent neighborhoods looking to steal guavas off trees. They play games that quickly turn dark in ways that, for me, evoked Lord of the Flies. They witness too many disturbing scenes of societal breakdown and ethnic tension. One of the ten-year-olds is pregnant, and if that's not discomfiting enough for ya, wait until you find out who the father is.
It's a harsh reality, one that Bulawayo renders with some of the strongest, most potent writing I've read. That she's managed to write so beautifully about such starkness without mismatching tone and topic is one of the things that blew me away about this book.
Then at around the halfway point, Darling gets sent to America ("Destroyedmichygen") to live with her Aunt Fostalina. The latter half chronicles her living out her teenage years as an immigrant there. While the American half is perhaps not quite as engaging as the Zimbabwean half of the tale, I did find that Bulawayo was equally insightful at capturing this experience, too. (The plot follows at least the broad outlines of NoViolet Bulawayo's life.)
Some readers complain about the episodic, anecdotal, loose structure of the novel. Not me. It's perfect for representing a young woman's window on one world coming apart and her putting herself back together in a new one.
We Need New Names can be seen as a raucous meditation on how home, or its absence, shapes lives. I'll end my review with this quote, a way into the heart of the novel:
There are three homes inside Mother’s and Aunt Fostalina’s heads: home before independence, before I was born, when black people and white people were fighting over the country. Home after independence, when black people won the country. And then the home of things falling apart, which made Aunt Fostalina leave and come here. Home one, home two, and home three. There are four homes inside Mother of Bones’ head: home before the white people came to steal the country, and a king ruled; home when the white people came to steal the country and then there was war; home when black people got our stolen country back after independence; and then the home of now. Home one, home two, home three, home four. When somebody talks about home, you have to listen carefully so you know exactly which one the person is referring to.
I want to go bigger, though: if Bulawayo builds on the promise of this deeply affecting debut novel, she might just become one of my favorite writers, period.
The unnamed country here is Zimbabwe, fairly close to the present day, in the advanced stages of sociopolitical meltdown under Mugabe's ham-handed iron-fisted rule. Darling is a ten-year-old girl living in a shantytown called--note the irony--Paradise after its residents were brutally displaced from their middle class neighborhood.
Darling and her group of friends--with glorious-sounding names, such as Godknows, Bastard, Sbho, and Chipo--have no school to go to anymore, and are almost always unsupervised and hungry. They roam through nearby affluent neighborhoods looking to steal guavas off trees. They play games that quickly turn dark in ways that, for me, evoked Lord of the Flies. They witness too many disturbing scenes of societal breakdown and ethnic tension. One of the ten-year-olds is pregnant, and if that's not discomfiting enough for ya, wait until you find out who the father is.
It's a harsh reality, one that Bulawayo renders with some of the strongest, most potent writing I've read. That she's managed to write so beautifully about such starkness without mismatching tone and topic is one of the things that blew me away about this book.
Then at around the halfway point, Darling gets sent to America ("Destroyedmichygen") to live with her Aunt Fostalina. The latter half chronicles her living out her teenage years as an immigrant there. While the American half is perhaps not quite as engaging as the Zimbabwean half of the tale, I did find that Bulawayo was equally insightful at capturing this experience, too. (The plot follows at least the broad outlines of NoViolet Bulawayo's life.)
Some readers complain about the episodic, anecdotal, loose structure of the novel. Not me. It's perfect for representing a young woman's window on one world coming apart and her putting herself back together in a new one.
We Need New Names can be seen as a raucous meditation on how home, or its absence, shapes lives. I'll end my review with this quote, a way into the heart of the novel:
There are three homes inside Mother’s and Aunt Fostalina’s heads: home before independence, before I was born, when black people and white people were fighting over the country. Home after independence, when black people won the country. And then the home of things falling apart, which made Aunt Fostalina leave and come here. Home one, home two, and home three. There are four homes inside Mother of Bones’ head: home before the white people came to steal the country, and a king ruled; home when the white people came to steal the country and then there was war; home when black people got our stolen country back after independence; and then the home of now. Home one, home two, home three, home four. When somebody talks about home, you have to listen carefully so you know exactly which one the person is referring to.
December 5, 2013
Oh stars, ratings. Bulawayo' s writing has effectively depicted such a bleak picture in my brain of life in Zimbabwe, life in America, life anywhere, that I am thoroughly depressed and somewhat shamed. This is a writer who charms you with the antics of the poor but creative and precocious children in their "Paradise" with the clever and intelligent games they play. Through the memorable character of Darling, we experience these games, and then the hard realities of coming to America. Bulawayo slyly strips away the American dream through Darling' s observations until you recognize yourself somewhere in this farce. And that is eye opening. And uncomfortable. And that is why the writer writes.
June 21, 2015
It took me almost to the end to get my interpretation of this book straight, since I was thrown off the scent by a snippet of praise from Peter Godwin "NoViolet Bulawayo is a powerful, authentic nihilistic voice - feral, feisty, funny". I haven't read Godwin's book so to me he is just some white guy, and I've gotta say I hate the gendered word feisty which is supposed to mean 'spirited' but throws off sexual connotations and also 'feral' which means wild like a free undomesticated animal and in combination I think these words make the kind of description of a black woman that deserves a serious side-eye. But what got under my skin and stuck there was the word nihilistic which means, correct me if I'm wrong, believing in no truth, in nothing, a Nietzschian philosophy. Thanks to some white guy I spent most of the novel thinking 'is this nihilistic?' because that is one big fat claim to make about an author.
In this incredibly annoying context (I wish I could wash my brain and read this again) the first line that really struck me was protagonist Darling's realisation in church that 'I had no sins'. All my brakes slammed on because I believe most people feel themselves to be in the right almost all of the time, except when actually actively in the throes of guilt over something. Darling has already talked about stealing, about being in trouble with authority figures in her life and not doing what she is 'supposed to' do, yet she 'has no sins'. In the mind of what judge does she have no sins? In her own mind? Or is there no mind that records transgressions? Or is there no such thing as sin?
Bulawayo makes bold references to, for instance, Things Fall Apart and, most provocatively, to Billie Holiday's song 'Strange Fruit', drawing a parallel between lynchings in the US and AIDS in African countries like Darling's.
I wondered about the meaning of the title, which comes from a moment when Darling and her group of friends are playing. Their names seem to be made of chewed up postcolonial detritus, but Bulawayo does not discuss this. However, the re-visioning and re-creation of the world through play is really important in the book, and it's the aspect that I continue to reflect on most after reading. Most strikingly, after witnessning the funeral of a gang-murdered activist the group reenact his death, which they have not seen, in the form of play. Bulawayo draws attention to the way children understand each other so profoundly in play that they almost meld into a hive mind.
It's no wonder then that Darling feels bereft in the USA where friendships have different tensions and each mind is more isolated. I enjoyed her unusual perspective on snow as a stifling horror. I liked the scene where she and her friends stole a car and went 'shopping'. The level of rule-breaking is consistent in both countries and I found Darling & her accomplices mischief against the ranks of privilege really satisfying! I also appreciated her comments on the dangers of driving or running while black, and there are some hints at empathy with African Americans that I was able to pick up thanks to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's much more incisive and detailed analysis-by-narrative of the dynamic between AA and NAB (Non-American Black) people in Americanah
Darling's refrain 'supposed to', external and internally recurring, is not confined to her childhood, though neither is her enforced obedience to various authorities. Its meaning seems to shift or float freely, suggesting a buffeted will. The scene where the children witnessed the gang evicting the white man had, I thought, an edge of derision, and no decisive sympathy in either direction: all of the actors in the little drama the children watched from the trees seemed foolish, craven, unappealing. Thus political machinations are written as theatre and take on more meaning through reinterpretation in play. In this sense, there is perhaps something nihilistic rather than just indecisive about the pre-migration section
However, once transplanted in the USA Darling's emotional life and thoughts take on sharper focus as she observes the rootless consumers around her seeming no more at home than she, far from the country where people bury the placenta in the ground so the child will stay connected to the earth ('Sons of the Soil', one activist addresses a crowd of fellow black Africans). For me there were some alienating notes, such as her resentment that in the US it's not socially acceptable to 'beat some sense into' one's kids, and what seemed like a total misunderstanding of the Occupy movement (which is flawed sure and has race issues yes but still: 'When I saw their pretty little tents and food piled on tables, I laughed at how they were trying to pretend they knew what suffering was' misses the mark, since the protest is not about the suffering of protesters themselves but about the exploitation of the global 99%. Darling's comment sounds like the ever useful '[{do what I say}{stop complaining}because] there are children starving in Africa')
Right at the end though, the anger comes judiciously to the boil. I think what brought me to my senses was the medicalisation of Tshaka Zulu, declared mad for speaking truth. Maybe Godwin handed down the nihilism verdict to help him sleep at night. But I disagree, I think the book itself is a verdict, not on the emptiness of the universe but on the colonised world; one as severe as a slap in the face to a spoilt kid. I finally thought of Kurt Vonnegut, though I'd much rather read this again, or better, more from NoViolet Bulawayo, than any of his brilliant horrible books.
In this incredibly annoying context (I wish I could wash my brain and read this again) the first line that really struck me was protagonist Darling's realisation in church that 'I had no sins'. All my brakes slammed on because I believe most people feel themselves to be in the right almost all of the time, except when actually actively in the throes of guilt over something. Darling has already talked about stealing, about being in trouble with authority figures in her life and not doing what she is 'supposed to' do, yet she 'has no sins'. In the mind of what judge does she have no sins? In her own mind? Or is there no mind that records transgressions? Or is there no such thing as sin?
Bulawayo makes bold references to, for instance, Things Fall Apart and, most provocatively, to Billie Holiday's song 'Strange Fruit', drawing a parallel between lynchings in the US and AIDS in African countries like Darling's.
I wondered about the meaning of the title, which comes from a moment when Darling and her group of friends are playing. Their names seem to be made of chewed up postcolonial detritus, but Bulawayo does not discuss this. However, the re-visioning and re-creation of the world through play is really important in the book, and it's the aspect that I continue to reflect on most after reading. Most strikingly, after witnessning the funeral of a gang-murdered activist the group reenact his death, which they have not seen, in the form of play. Bulawayo draws attention to the way children understand each other so profoundly in play that they almost meld into a hive mind.
It's no wonder then that Darling feels bereft in the USA where friendships have different tensions and each mind is more isolated. I enjoyed her unusual perspective on snow as a stifling horror. I liked the scene where she and her friends stole a car and went 'shopping'. The level of rule-breaking is consistent in both countries and I found Darling & her accomplices mischief against the ranks of privilege really satisfying! I also appreciated her comments on the dangers of driving or running while black, and there are some hints at empathy with African Americans that I was able to pick up thanks to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's much more incisive and detailed analysis-by-narrative of the dynamic between AA and NAB (Non-American Black) people in Americanah
Darling's refrain 'supposed to', external and internally recurring, is not confined to her childhood, though neither is her enforced obedience to various authorities. Its meaning seems to shift or float freely, suggesting a buffeted will. The scene where the children witnessed the gang evicting the white man had, I thought, an edge of derision, and no decisive sympathy in either direction: all of the actors in the little drama the children watched from the trees seemed foolish, craven, unappealing. Thus political machinations are written as theatre and take on more meaning through reinterpretation in play. In this sense, there is perhaps something nihilistic rather than just indecisive about the pre-migration section
However, once transplanted in the USA Darling's emotional life and thoughts take on sharper focus as she observes the rootless consumers around her seeming no more at home than she, far from the country where people bury the placenta in the ground so the child will stay connected to the earth ('Sons of the Soil', one activist addresses a crowd of fellow black Africans). For me there were some alienating notes, such as her resentment that in the US it's not socially acceptable to 'beat some sense into' one's kids, and what seemed like a total misunderstanding of the Occupy movement (which is flawed sure and has race issues yes but still: 'When I saw their pretty little tents and food piled on tables, I laughed at how they were trying to pretend they knew what suffering was' misses the mark, since the protest is not about the suffering of protesters themselves but about the exploitation of the global 99%. Darling's comment sounds like the ever useful '[{do what I say}{stop complaining}because] there are children starving in Africa')
Right at the end though, the anger comes judiciously to the boil. I think what brought me to my senses was the medicalisation of Tshaka Zulu, declared mad for speaking truth. Maybe Godwin handed down the nihilism verdict to help him sleep at night. But I disagree, I think the book itself is a verdict, not on the emptiness of the universe but on the colonised world; one as severe as a slap in the face to a spoilt kid. I finally thought of Kurt Vonnegut, though I'd much rather read this again, or better, more from NoViolet Bulawayo, than any of his brilliant horrible books.
July 10, 2016
3 ½ stars
The writing was something else!
The first 50% that deals with Darling and her friends (Bastard, Godknows, Bornfree etc) was amazing. I absolutely loved it and I think if you have a connection with Zimbabwe or Africa you will probably, like me, have a deeper connection to the story. I saw a lot of hidden meaning in what these kids saw, told and played.
They run wild every day in their shanty town, stealing guavas from the rich houses, playing games like Find Bin Laden with no idea what that means and making a general nuisance of themselves everywhere. The neglectful adults are too busy searching for work in the mines and the borders to spare time for the children.
And because the voice of Darling is so strong and matter of fact, the neglect and abuse some of these kids experienced creeped up on you with no warning. I also think there was a gentle poking of fun at western help for Zimbabwe. I am not saying the help is unappreciated I am only saying that sometimes Western countries do not always understand what really is needed in struggling 3rd world countries.
I want to address something that seems to have come up in a lot of negative reviews. And that is the perception that the author deliberately wanted to portray Americans as ignorant and stupid. I think that the author did a sterling job balancing both sides. Showing the unrealistic expectations of Darling (representing all immigrants) of the land of plenty that America is, and the American people’s ignorance about what really matters to an immigrant, why their yardstick for prosperity is not the same as that of a child of Africa.
The storyline once Darling has emigrated to America was still good, and at times very funny, yet some of the magic was left behind on African soil. Interspersed throughout the 2nd half of the book were chapters that speak in the collective voice of immigrants and these sections were gutpunchingly powerful
At Birger King we worshiped the Whopper. At KFC we mauled bucket chicken. We ate for our past hunger, for our parents and brothers and sisters and relatives who were still stuck back there. We uttered their names between mouthfuls, conjured up their hungry faces and chapped lips…
If only our country could see us in America, see us eat like kings in a land that was not ours…
…..And the jobs we worked, Jesus – Jesus, the jobs we worked. Low-paying jobs. Backbreaking jobs, Jobs that gnawed at the bones of our dignity, devoured the meat, tongued the marrow. We took scalding irons and ironed our pride flat.
The author dropped the ball a bit during the last 15% of the book but as this is her debut novel I can’t wait to see how her writing matures because she has undeniable talent.
The writing was something else!
The first 50% that deals with Darling and her friends (Bastard, Godknows, Bornfree etc) was amazing. I absolutely loved it and I think if you have a connection with Zimbabwe or Africa you will probably, like me, have a deeper connection to the story. I saw a lot of hidden meaning in what these kids saw, told and played.
They run wild every day in their shanty town, stealing guavas from the rich houses, playing games like Find Bin Laden with no idea what that means and making a general nuisance of themselves everywhere. The neglectful adults are too busy searching for work in the mines and the borders to spare time for the children.
And because the voice of Darling is so strong and matter of fact, the neglect and abuse some of these kids experienced creeped up on you with no warning. I also think there was a gentle poking of fun at western help for Zimbabwe. I am not saying the help is unappreciated I am only saying that sometimes Western countries do not always understand what really is needed in struggling 3rd world countries.
I want to address something that seems to have come up in a lot of negative reviews. And that is the perception that the author deliberately wanted to portray Americans as ignorant and stupid. I think that the author did a sterling job balancing both sides. Showing the unrealistic expectations of Darling (representing all immigrants) of the land of plenty that America is, and the American people’s ignorance about what really matters to an immigrant, why their yardstick for prosperity is not the same as that of a child of Africa.
The storyline once Darling has emigrated to America was still good, and at times very funny, yet some of the magic was left behind on African soil. Interspersed throughout the 2nd half of the book were chapters that speak in the collective voice of immigrants and these sections were gutpunchingly powerful
At Birger King we worshiped the Whopper. At KFC we mauled bucket chicken. We ate for our past hunger, for our parents and brothers and sisters and relatives who were still stuck back there. We uttered their names between mouthfuls, conjured up their hungry faces and chapped lips…
If only our country could see us in America, see us eat like kings in a land that was not ours…
…..And the jobs we worked, Jesus – Jesus, the jobs we worked. Low-paying jobs. Backbreaking jobs, Jobs that gnawed at the bones of our dignity, devoured the meat, tongued the marrow. We took scalding irons and ironed our pride flat.
The author dropped the ball a bit during the last 15% of the book but as this is her debut novel I can’t wait to see how her writing matures because she has undeniable talent.
August 13, 2013
The author of We Need New Names chose her own new name for her writing. ‘NoViolet’ is a tribute to Elizabeth Tshele’s mother Violet, who died when Elizabeth was only 18 months old.
She also chose interesting names for some of the characters in this book set in Zimbabwe. The story is a first person narrative by Darling, beginning at about age 10. Her close friends include Bastard, Chipo, Godknows. Her grandma is Mother of Bones. They live in Paradise; in the first chapter Hitting Budapest (which won the Caine African Short Story contest a couple of years ago), Darling and her friends are going to the rich area (village? neighbourhood?) of Budapest. They are looking for guavas to steal and eat (it reminded me as a kid sneaking into the nearby church yard with a couple of friends to steal crabapples from the trees. Somehow the tart fruits tasted better when the adrenaline was surging and the heart was palpitating with fear.) Their antics are brought up short by a white woman who calls to them from her house, and then comes outside to talk with them and take photos. The kids are uncomfortable — who is this person? The peculiar encounter is described with just the right level of unease, of a bit of a culture tangle. The shocking ending to that chapter sends a warning about what may come later.
Darling is written as a strong dynamic voice. She’s not a creation; she is there, existing, right there on the page, talking to you. She’s tough, she’s funny, she’s opinionated. Especially powerful are scenes where Darling and her friends meet up with Westerners, usually expats or from NGOs, and later in America. The familiar tv scene of the NGO truck arriving in some African village to dispense aid and goodies to throngs of shouting black kids is turned inside out, or flipped around, and it is funny as well as unsettling and thought provoking.
The novel is a collection of discrete events, almost linked short stories. Many of the chapters stand on their own. As the character gets a bit older, several short chapters become more introspective, and serve more as the role of chorus.
There’s a lot here — coming of age, colonialism, AIDS, immigration, assimilation — but somehow it knits wells together, and Darling’s voice always stays strong.
I hope to see this one on the Booker shortlist.
She also chose interesting names for some of the characters in this book set in Zimbabwe. The story is a first person narrative by Darling, beginning at about age 10. Her close friends include Bastard, Chipo, Godknows. Her grandma is Mother of Bones. They live in Paradise; in the first chapter Hitting Budapest (which won the Caine African Short Story contest a couple of years ago), Darling and her friends are going to the rich area (village? neighbourhood?) of Budapest. They are looking for guavas to steal and eat (it reminded me as a kid sneaking into the nearby church yard with a couple of friends to steal crabapples from the trees. Somehow the tart fruits tasted better when the adrenaline was surging and the heart was palpitating with fear.) Their antics are brought up short by a white woman who calls to them from her house, and then comes outside to talk with them and take photos. The kids are uncomfortable — who is this person? The peculiar encounter is described with just the right level of unease, of a bit of a culture tangle. The shocking ending to that chapter sends a warning about what may come later.
Darling is written as a strong dynamic voice. She’s not a creation; she is there, existing, right there on the page, talking to you. She’s tough, she’s funny, she’s opinionated. Especially powerful are scenes where Darling and her friends meet up with Westerners, usually expats or from NGOs, and later in America. The familiar tv scene of the NGO truck arriving in some African village to dispense aid and goodies to throngs of shouting black kids is turned inside out, or flipped around, and it is funny as well as unsettling and thought provoking.
The novel is a collection of discrete events, almost linked short stories. Many of the chapters stand on their own. As the character gets a bit older, several short chapters become more introspective, and serve more as the role of chorus.
There’s a lot here — coming of age, colonialism, AIDS, immigration, assimilation — but somehow it knits wells together, and Darling’s voice always stays strong.
I hope to see this one on the Booker shortlist.
May 18, 2013
My thoughts:
- An enlightening debut that takes the reader to Zimbabwe during the Mugabe regime. The subject matter is a bit grim as the novel opens with Darling and her friends leaving their shanty town to roam the finer neighborhoods in search of guava for food.
- We learn of the daily routines of the displaced civilians: the adults who neglect children in search for work in the mines and the borders; the games the children play to fight boredom and make sense of the dire futures.
- The author covers the political unrest and promise for "change" in the upcoming election; the hope, misogyny, and hypocrisy of religious doctrine; the social ills and financial ruin that befall a country under a corrupt dictatorship.
- The later half of the story explores the cultural nuances, language challenges, assimilation challenges as Darling relocates to America to stay with an aunt. The environmental differenced, culture shock, and disillusionment with an impoverished Detroit, Michigan.
- Homesickness plagues both aunt and niece, and the realities of their one-way journey weighs heavily on the hearts and guilt burdens their sub-conscious; but the determination to make it in the US is the driving force toward success, so they work very hard and long for permanent, legal residency.
- The author gave me enough to easily empathize and sympathize with Darling, her friends and family. I enjoyed Darling's points of view, her voice, and her innocence.
- I absolutely LOVED the cross-cultural references, nuances, similarities/differences, and challenges: Interactions with non-Africans, African Americans; the notion of smiling; differences in child-rearing; the significance of a "name" and the need for new ones; views of education, the stigma and impact of AIDS, the dismantling of the family unit, etc.
- I'll definitely consider future work from this author.
- An enlightening debut that takes the reader to Zimbabwe during the Mugabe regime. The subject matter is a bit grim as the novel opens with Darling and her friends leaving their shanty town to roam the finer neighborhoods in search of guava for food.
- We learn of the daily routines of the displaced civilians: the adults who neglect children in search for work in the mines and the borders; the games the children play to fight boredom and make sense of the dire futures.
- The author covers the political unrest and promise for "change" in the upcoming election; the hope, misogyny, and hypocrisy of religious doctrine; the social ills and financial ruin that befall a country under a corrupt dictatorship.
- The later half of the story explores the cultural nuances, language challenges, assimilation challenges as Darling relocates to America to stay with an aunt. The environmental differenced, culture shock, and disillusionment with an impoverished Detroit, Michigan.
- Homesickness plagues both aunt and niece, and the realities of their one-way journey weighs heavily on the hearts and guilt burdens their sub-conscious; but the determination to make it in the US is the driving force toward success, so they work very hard and long for permanent, legal residency.
- The author gave me enough to easily empathize and sympathize with Darling, her friends and family. I enjoyed Darling's points of view, her voice, and her innocence.
- I absolutely LOVED the cross-cultural references, nuances, similarities/differences, and challenges: Interactions with non-Africans, African Americans; the notion of smiling; differences in child-rearing; the significance of a "name" and the need for new ones; views of education, the stigma and impact of AIDS, the dismantling of the family unit, etc.
- I'll definitely consider future work from this author.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,784 reviews