Book Review and Reflection of We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

Genre: Coming of Age, Fiction
Date of Publication: 2013
Get a copy HERE

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Introduction

Another literary gem from Zimbabwe. Firstly, I adore the cover of the hard copy I received. We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo is striking from the very start. Chilling themes are revealed early on and continue to unfold throughout the book. The writing is excellent. NoViolet takes readers into a vivid world that feels almost tangible, with its incredible nuances threaded throughout. One may miss hidden meanings if they aren’t looking closely. For instance, in Chapter One, Darling, the protagonist, says:

“We just walk nicely like Budapest is now our country too, like we built it even, eating guavas along the way and spitting the peels all over to make the place dirty.” (p.11)

Here, Daling and her friends indicate that they dream of belonging, of living in good neighbourhoods and good houses. But because they do not in reality, they can do something small to taint the perfection—they can make it dirty, even just a little bit. But it is the intention that matters.

There are also various nuances about countries. For instance, Darling says:

“We just eat a lot of guavas because it’s the only way to kill our hunger, and when it comes to defecating, we get in so much pain it becomes an almost impossible task, like you are trying to give birth to a country.” (p.16)
Or “like he has swallowed a country.” (p. 45)

There are many such lines, alluding to the state of their country and how they experience it—the understanding of a country’s significance. Knowing Zimbabwe’s history, especially in light of colonialism, independence, and the international sanctions imposed on it in the 2000s, explains a lot.

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Book Summary

Set in Zimbabwe, this book does not waste any time getting to very serious themes, cleverly couched in what may seem like the everyday. The first chapter already paints an unequal world, where Black Zimbabweans are poor, hungry, and even abused. The first chapter starts with Darling and her friends “hitting Budapest,” and readers discover that one of her friends, Chipo, is pregnant at 11 years old and has stopped talking, alluding to sexual violence and trauma. Thus, early on, we are introduced to the hardships these children face and what they are exposed to.

Darling and her friends walk from their place of residence, which they have named “Paradise”, an informal settlement, to what they call “Budapest”, seemingly a rich and lush suburban area with beautiful houses inhabited by white people. The children aspire to own houses just like these one day. And Darling? She has bigger dreams, she will live in America one day, her America, she calls it.

But Paradise was not always their home; they were displaced there. At this, I thought the book was set in colonial Zimbabwe, but we find later that it seems to be post-independence Zimbabwe. And so, a powerful narration of how we are not living in a post-colonial world, the injustices of colonialism, even though it has legally been abolished, linger.

This brings much clarity to the emphasis on countries woven through the book: what makes a country? Who oppresses, and who are the oppressed? What is a real country? What is the significance of a country? Like the emphasis on countries, “things being real” is another thread flowing through this book. Darling and her friends often emphasise how the things they do or have are for real, games they play, for instance, and much more.

Another interesting theme is the white saviourism that gives but also captures. For instance, NGO personnel frequent Paradise, bringing its inhabitants gifts, taking pictures of them, but do not want to touch them, drawing a clear othering line between the us and them dichotomy. Yet, they take pictures of them at every chance they get. The children are grateful, but the adults are humiliated by the charity. NoViolet weaves this picture-taking conundrum of poor Africans sporadically throughout the book, leaving readers to ponder its meaning.

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More themes that Stood Out

Another theme that stood out to me was the character of Darling’s father, the man who abandoned his family in search of better, forgot them, and then returned when on the verge of death. This is as heartbreaking as it is common: men leaving their wives and children behind, never to return, or returning only in precarious conditions. We see a similar fate befall Atini in Sindiwe Magona’s Living, Loving and Lying Awake at Night.

Chapter 10 – “How They Left” is so chilling, it grabs you and tightens your heart in a familiar pain, especially if you are an immigrant who was forced to leave their country. Only a page and a half long, but it weighed so much. NoViolet made a poignant point when she said:

“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.” (p.146)

Will Darling be one of those who left in droves? Will she finally meet HER America? And if she does? What does she make of it?
Get yourself a copy of this phenomenal book to find out.

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Black Joy Shines Through

With all the heavy themes of this book, Black joy still peeks out. It is in the characters that NoViolet has produced, especially the children. In the midst of all that was going on, they found ways to have adventure, entertainment, and to carry on somehow.

Mina Salami, in her book Sensuous Knowledge (review coming soon), explains that Black joy is not an absence of hardship—it is recognising those hardships but also choosing to find moments of joy, creativity, hope, ease, security, and freedom. This same Black joy is woven across the pages of Sindiwe Magona’s earlier-mentioned book, Living, Loving and Lying Awake at Night.

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Recommendations

Everyone of age, African or not, should read this book. Even though this is a work of fiction, it is based on the realities of not just many Zimbabweans, but many other people whose countries have encountered such deep trouble that their sons and daughters had to leave in droves, but also of the reality of those who stay.

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About the Author

NoViolet Bulawayo is a Zimbabwean author whose writing captures the complexity of migration, identity, and postcolonial struggle with gripping honesty and poetic power. Her debut novel, We Need New Names, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. She has subsequently written others that I am eager to read and review: Country Country (2020) and Glory (2022).