We Need New Names: A Novel

NoViolet Bulawayo has written a novel that sings. Its sentences are like poems and the characterization is visceral and ever-present. Taking place in Zimbabwe, the book's beginning is about a group of children with unusual names - Darling, Chipo, Bastard, Bornfree, Forgiveness and Messenger, to name a few. Narrated by 10 year old Darling, we learn of their lives in Paradise, a tin house shanty that is where they ended up after a revolution that took away their family's homes, jobs, and way of life. "We didn't always live in this tin, though. Before, we had a home and everything and we were happy. It was a real house made of bricks, with a kitchen, sitting room, and two bedrooms." Darling's father has gone to South Africa to find work but they never hear from him and he sends no money home. "Because Father does not do anything for us, Mother complains. About our tinned house, Paradise, the food that is not there, the clothes she wants, and everything else."Schools are no longer in service as the teachers have all left to go and live somewhere else in Africa where they will get paid. Chipo is pregnant by her grandfather and the children want to try and end her pregnancy. They spend their days in the richer part of town called Budapest, stealing guavas and eating them until their stomachs are upset and they are ill. When they are not stealing guavas, they play games such as Find Bin Laden and other interactive games.Politics is a big concern for the adults and there is an election that they hope will change the power structure in the country. They hope they will be able to move back to their houses, get jobs and have things as they once were. "We'll start living. It won't be the same again. Come, change, come now. They talked like that, stayed up night after night and waited for the change that was near. Waited and waited and waited. But then the waiting did not end and the change did not happen."Food is so scarce that the children are often hungry. Once, when they are stealing guavas they meet a woman from London who asks them some questions and throws away a piece of food. They have never seen anyone do this before and it creates puzzlement and anger. "We shout and we shout and we shout; we want to eat the thing she was eating, we want to hear our voices soar, we want our hunger to go away. The woman just looks at us puzzled."Darling lives in Paradise with Mother of Bones and her own mother who is gone for days at a time. She dreams of going to 'Destroyedmichygen' to live with her Aunt Fostalina. "Look at them leaving in droves, the children of the land." "Those in pain are crossing borders." "Those with hopes are crossing borders." "When things fall apart, the children of the land scurry and scatter like birds escaping a burning sky. They flee their own wretched land so their hunger may be pacified in foreign lands, their tears wiped away in strange lands, the wounds of their despair bandaged in faraway lands, their blistered prayers muttered in the darkness of queer lands." They leave their mothers and fathers behind, "leaving everything that makes them who and what they are, leaving because it is no longer possible to stay." "Look at them leaving in droves despite knowing they will be welcomed with restraint in those strange lands because they do not belong."Once she gets to Michigan, she finds that the U.S. is not what she had hoped it would be. She is teased at school, is unfamiliar with the snow and cold, and does not know how to eat with a knife and fork. However, there is a lot of food and she no longer goes hungry. "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." "We ate like pigs, like wolves, like dignitaries; we ate like vultures, like stray dogs, like monsters; for our parents and brothers and sisters and relatives and friends who were still back there."Darling finds school easy and does very well. However, when she looks at the cost of college, she realizes that it is out of reach for her. Ten years old when the book opens, Darling gets to her teenage years by the book's end. She is working in a supermarket sorting recyclables and hope is draining from her spirit. She had promised to remain in touch with her friends back home but, with time, she has stopped writing to them. She feels like two people, one part of her yearning for her friends and the other part not knowing how to be with them anymore. After school, she and her friends go to Darling's home where they watch pornography after school.Darling has no papers except for an expired student visa so she is unable to go home and visit. If she did so, she would be unable to return to the United States. She lives in the U.S. with her Aunt Fostalina, her Uncle Kojo and her cousin TK who likes to play video games alone. He ends up joining the army and going to Afghanistan which almost destroys her uncle's life.The strongest part of the book is the beginning when Darling is in Zimbabwe. Once she gets to the United States, the narrative weakens a bit. However, it still remains strong and powerful, poetic and moving. I loved this book and highly recommend it. I thank Ms. Bulawayo for this gift she has given us and can see why she is a Stegner fellow at Stanford.

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo, shortlisted for the Booker is a simultaneously endearing and heart-breaking coming of age story of Darling. It begins with 10 year old Darling and her friends foraging for guavas to sate their hunger in a wealthy area of Zimbabwe called Budapest. These children no longer go to school because their school teachers have all escaped from the country and school has closed so they occupy themselves by finding much needed food and playing invented games like Name the Country and Find Bin Laden.The children are likeable and endearing and the stories of their escapades enjoyable. Poignant, heart-breaking moments are added to the mix: 11 year old Shibo is pregnant and the children attempt to remove her belly because they are afraid she will die if she has the baby, Darling's father returns from the mines of South Africa dying of AIDS.After every few chapters of Darling's story is a chapter which tells the story of Zimbabwe. These are quite powerfully written as can be seen by the beginning of one of those chapters:"Look at them leaving in droves, the children of the land, just look at them leaving in droves. Those with nothing are crossing borders. Those with strength are crossing borders. Those with ambitions are crossing borders. Those with hopes are crossing borders. Those with loss are crossing borders. Those in pain are crossing borders. Moving, running, emigrating, going, deserting, walking, quitting, flying, fleeing—to all over, to countries near and far, to countries unheard of, to countries whose names they cannot pronounce. They are leaving in droves."I loved this compelling book and do not hesitate to recommend it.

a very credible first novel for the author, NoViolet Bulawayo. the first half of the novel takes place in Zimbabwe well after independence and deals with a group of street kids, centering on one girl in particular named Darling wandering about the town, looking for food and things to do, since life doesn't really offer all that much of either. School is no longer an option and life is very precarious at best for these kids living in a shanty town after being pushed out of their houses by the local authorities. Parents are powerless and largely absent from the story line. It's a pretty grim picture, but it certainly feels quite honest enough. you get a pretty gritty look at life in Zimbabwe for those not allied with Mugabe, including an incident with a white middle class family suddenly pushed out of their house as well. Later a primarily European NGO comes around the area dropping off a few toys and clothes, solving nothing in particular.Somehow or another Darling manages to do to visit relatives in the Detroit area and becomes yet another African in more or less permanent exile from the homeland. For me, it's such a twist that the book feels more like two almost unconnected stories. The transition doesn't really flow. But there are lots of interesting moments in America as well, so it retains interest.The book is well worth reading although it may take a little effort to get past the first chapter or two. But keep an eye out for this author in the future.

Para practicar lectura en inglés es una buena opción

Bulawayo is a masterful storyteller. With words that resonate the innocent, raw experiences of childhood to the confused maturity of a young person in a foreign land, this tale takes you on an emotional dune ride. The narrative is fearless, hilarious, poignant and often visceral, with many sparkling passages that jump out at you -- the kind that you can't help but share with the person sitting next to you. Two thumbs up!

Such a great novel. Beautifully written and exploring some really hearty issues including transnational migration. I really enjoyed this one.

This novel is mostly told from the perspective of a child growing up in a slum in Zimbabwe and who then moves to her aunt's place in Michigan.Darling's, the narrator's, voice, drew me in from the first moment, when she tells us about stealing Guavas in a rich neighborhood, about the hunger that motivates her and her friends to do so. The author manages to render a child's perspective so well - the little adventures children experience when they roam without adult supervision, how they try to explain things to themselves to make sense of the world around them.What strikes me most is the humorous quality of Darling's voice. That doesn't mean the book is funny in a silly way. But Darling observes the world around her and she is both a very inquiring and skeptical child. This leads to great passages in the novel, for example when she describes how Americans treat their children (as opposed to the way the African immigrants are used to). Another gem is when she reflects about how Angelina Jolie can travel to any part of the world and just adopt a child and how much she herself would have loved to be adopted by her. All of this happens in a way that just shows the absurdity which is created by the inequalities in our world.The novel is very honest about the situation in Zimbabwe - the hunger, the desperation, how the adults try to maintain hope and dignity in extreme poverty. It is also honest about how moving to the US transforms Darling, because she now partakes in the privileges of living in a rich country.There are some interesting short chapters included in which the narrative voice is a collective "we" of immigrants from poor countries. These I find heartbreaking. They speak of the loss of language, the hard work, and the inability to return to your country, even when your parents die, because some procedure has declared you "illegal".The novel reads more like a collection of short stories which have the same narrator and are arranged in chronological order but that doesn't make the reading any less enjoyable.Absolutely recommended.

Une œuvre réaliste, poignante, servie par une belle plume qui manie l'humour et le tragique avec la même verve et rend son personnage principal terriblement attachant.