We Need New Names
NoViolet Bulawayo
Bulawayo, NoViolet;
We Need New Names
Random House, 2013, 304 pages
ISBN 1448156238, 9781448156238
See Also
Scary Danny - Chapter 6 - DaemonshadowfoxGround-Bird's Nest - Chapter 1 - bobbinrobins - BatmanAnthony Gould is your old-school alternativeA long dark night of the solestopics:| fiction | zimbabwe |
One of my best reads of 2013... a tale of the disenfranchised.
In the first half a bunch of shantytown kids roam the streets of theposhest neighbourhood in town looking for guava trees to raid.The storytelling is very powerful, because from the child's point of view,events like an armed mob rioting or her father dying of AIDS are told witha disarming directness that neither emphasizes nor decries the sordidliving conditions in cardboard homes. At the same time the neighbourhood of Budapest is full of mansions of the whites, with expansivegardens. The lively, bedraggled gang, with fascinating names like Godknows(with buttocks showing through his holed shorts), and Bastard (the big boyand bully of the gang), Sbho (a girl who likes to pretty herself), andChipo, who has a fat belly, because though only eleven, she was raped by afamily member... The protagonist is called Darling.
Their interactions of the whites are fascinating - Darling has never talkedto one in her life. Other sideplots involve other fascinating groups - thereChinese workers who are building a factory and seeing the local women, aminister who spews fire in his sermons at the church on top of the hill, and after she reaches the United States, the tribal chief Tshaka Zulu, whostill lives in the old culture.
The opening chapter, [nbhb|Hitting Budapest], was published in Granta andwon the Caine short story prize. The book was shortlisted for Booker.
Includes a beautiful chapter on the riots that engulfed Zimbabwe in the day they manage to get in to oneof the mansions... % This chapter, Blak Power is probably aspowerful as Hitting [nbhb|Budapest], but not as neutral politically, so may be it is lesstalked about, but it is also a powerful statement, and exquisitely told -particularly Darling's conversation with the parents of the white couple...
The scene where the NGO truck comes delivering goodies reminded meof the "steam control" dialogue from the Bonfire of the Vanities - The rich attempting to keep the lid on dissent, and thus preserve theircapital, by throwing crumbs to the countless poor...
Excerpts
Hitting Budapest
We are on our way to Budapest: Bastard and Chipo and Godknows and Sbho andStina and me.
...
When we get right to the middle of Budapest we stop. This place is notlike Paradise, it’s like being in a different country altogether. A nicecountry where people who are not like us live. But then you don’t seeanything to show there are real people living here; even the air itself isempty: no delicious food cooking, no odors, no sounds. Just nothing. p.4
...
How old are you? the woman asks Chipo, looking at her stomach like she hasnever seen anybody pregnant.
She is eleven, Godknows replies for Chipo. We are ten, me and her, liketwinses, Godknows says, meaning him and me. And Bastard is eleven and Sbho isnine, and Stina we don’t know because he has no birth certificate. p.7
...Noviolet Bulawayo. Source: WSJI know London. I ate some sweets from there once. They were sweet at first,and then they just changed to sour in my mouth. Uncle Vusa sent them whenhe first got there but that was a long time ago. Now he never sendsanything, Godknows says. He looks up at the sky like maybe he wants a planeto appear with sweets from his uncle. p.8...The house has big windows and sparkling things all over, and a red swimmingpool at the front, empty chairs all around it. Everything looks reallypretty, but I think it’s the kind of pretty to look at and admire and say,Oh, that’s pretty, not a pretty to live in. p.10Going back to Paradise, we do not run. We just walk nicely like Budapest isnow our country too... p.11
Noviolet Bulawayo. Source: 2 Darling on the Mountain
Jesus Christ died on this day, which is why I have to be out here washingwith cold water like this. I don’t like cold water and I don’t even likewashing my whole body unless I have somewhere meaningful to go. After Ifinish and dress, me and Mother of Bones will head off to church. She saysit’s the least we can do because we are all dirty sinners and we are the onesfor whom Jesus Christ gave his life, but what I know is that I myself wasn’tthere when it all happened, so how can I be a sinner?I don’t like going tochurch because I don’t really see why I have to sit in the hot sun on thatmountain and listen to boring songs and meaningless prayers and strangeverses when I could be doing important things with my friends.Plus, last time I went, that crazy Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborroshook me and shook me until I vomited pink things. I thought I was going todie a real death. Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro was trying to getthe spirit inside me out; they say I’m possessed because they say mygrandfather isn’t properly buried because the white people killed himduring the war for feeding and hiding the terrorists who were trying to getour country back because the white people had stolen it. 19-20[the storytelling is very nonlinear. you are told that the grandfather waskilled by the whites in the war - much later, you encounter his picturehidden in a bible. You don't even know who Mother of bones is until a goodbit into the novel.]If you’re stealing something it’s better if its small and hideable orsomething you can eat quickly, like guavas. That way, people can’t see youwith the thing to be reminded that you are a shameless thief and that youstole it from them, so I don’t know what white people were trying to do,stealing not just a tiny piece but a whole country. 20Hey cabbage ears, I hear somebody shout. p.20My father says your church is kaka and that your Prophet RevelationsBitchington Mborro is an idio - I hear Bastard's voice start.You you futsekani leave her alone you bloody mgodoyis get away boSatanbeRoma! Mother of Bones spits from inside the shack 21[photos on the walls of the shack.]Next to Jesus is my cousin Makhosi carrying me when we were little.Two years ago, Makhosi went away to Madante mine to dig for diamonds, whenthey were first discovered and everybody was flocking there. When Makhosicame back, his hands were like decaying logs. He told us about Madantebetween bouts of raw, painful coughs, how when he was under the earth heforgot everything. He said all he knew inside that mine was the terriblepounding of the hammer around him, sometimes even inside him, like he hadswallowed it. 23[about her grandfather's photo which Mother of Bones keeps in the oldunused bible.]I knew who he was the moment I laid my eyes on him for the first time; itfelt as if I were looking at myself and Makhosi and Father and my uncle Muziand my other relatives, like my grandfather's face was a folded fist andall our faces were collected like coins inside it. 24[Mother of Bones is counting useless money from the old regime]And the American money they are talking about just where do they think I'llget it do they think I can just dig it up huh do they think I will defecateit? 25[white sign on Vodloza's shack:]Vodloza, BESTEST healer in all of this paradise and beyond ...[fixes] Bewitchedness, Curses, Bad luck, Whoring spouses, Chlldrenlessness,poverty, joblessness, AIDS, Madness, Small penises, ... Dead peopleterrorizing you, Bad luck with getting visas especially to USA andBritain... 27[They meet Bornfree and Messenger, who talk of how Change is coming. ]We are demonstrating tomorrow, on Main street. Come and walk for change!Paradise is all tin and stretches out in the sun like a wet sheepskinnailed on the ground to dry; the shacks are the muddy color of dirty puddlesafter the rains. 34[but from up on flambeki hill they seem much better, almost beautifuleven... ]the evangelists and Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro arrive aftereverybody, like chief baboons 32Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro is thundering about Judas andGolgotha and the cross and the two thieves next to Jesus, making like he wasthere and saw it all... [Soon] Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro isdrenched in sweeat, and his robe clings to his chest; you can see his breastsand nipples. 35Simangele's confession - last week she went to seek Vodloza's help becauseshe doesn't know what to do anymore about her jealous cousin, who is also awitch and keeps sending her tokoloshes because she wants her dead so shecan then take over Simangele's husband, Lovemore. 37[God tells Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro that the devil is coming.The devil is a pretty woman - "just so pretty that even Sbho doesn't compare"- except that nobody needs breasts the size of ugly baby's head. A group ofmen are struggling to carry her to the church at the top of Fambeki hill.Her purple dress is riding up showing white knickers with red kisses - theydon't even have a single hole in them.The pretty woman is kicking and screaming - Leave me alone, leave me alone yousons of bitches! You don't know me! ... As soon as she arrives,Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro points his stick at her and thundersfor the demon insider her to get the hell out in the name of Jesus.When nothing happens, he throws his stick aside, and leaps onto the womanlike maybe he is Hulkogen, squashing her mountains beneath him.Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborro prays for the woman like that, pinningher down and calling to Jesus and screaming Bible verses. He places hishands on her stomach, her thighs, then puts his hands on her thing and startsrubbing and praying hard for it, like there's something wrong with it. Hisface is alight, glowing. The pretty woman just looks like a rag now, theprettiness gone.[And then Chipo wakes up and starts talking]He did that, that's what he did, Chipo says, shaking my arm like she wants tobreak it off. This is the first time in a long time that Chipo is talkinglike maybe she has received the holy spirit or something. Her voice isshrill in my ear... He did that, my grandfather, I was coming from playingFind bin Laden and my grandmother was not there and my grandfather got on meand pinned me down like that and he clamped a hand over my mouth and washeavy like a mountain...I want to laugh that her voice is back, but her face confuses me.I say, Do you want to go and steal guavas? 40-41
3 Country-game
It’s just madness inside Shanghai; machines hoist things in their terriblejaws, machines maul the earth, machines grind rocks, machines belch clouds ofsmoke, machines iron the ground. Everywhere machines. The Chinese men are allover the place in orange uniforms and yellow helmets; there’s not that manyof them but from the way they are running around, you’d think they are afield of corn. And then there are the black men, who are working in regularclothes – torn T-shirts, vests, shorts, trousers cut at the knees, overalls,flip-flops, tennis shoes. 42[The fat Chinese overseer walks out of the tent, tightening his belt.]Look at that drum of a stomach, it's like he has swallowed a country.We are still standing there when out walk these two black girls inskinny jeans and weaves and heels. 45Okay, it’s like this. China is a red devil looking for people to eat soit can grow fat and strong. Now we have to decide if it actually breaksinto people’s homes or just ambushes them in the forest, Godknows says.We are back in Paradise and are now trying to come up with a new game; it’simportant to do this so we don’t get tired of old ones and bore ourselvesto death, but then it’s also not easy because we have to argue and see ifthe whole thing can work. It’s Bastard’s turn to decide what the new gameis about, and even after this morning, he still wants it to be about China,for what, I don’t know.
Country Game
[In the country-game] Each person has to be a country.But first we have to fight over the names because everybody wants to becertain countries, like everybody wants to be the USA and Britain andCanada and Australia and Switzerland and France and Italy and Sweden andGermany and Russia and Greece and them. These are the country-countries. Ifyou lose the fight, then you just have to settle for countries like Dubaiand South Africa and Botswana and Tanzania and them. They are not countrycountries, but at least life is better than here. Nobody wants to be ragsof countries like Congo, like Somalia, like Iraq, like Sudan, like Haiti,like Sri Lanka, and not even this one we live in. Who wants to be aterrible place of hunger and things falling apart?If I’m lucky, like today, I get to be the USA, which is a country-country;who doesn’t know that the USA is the big baboon of the world? I feel likeit’s my country now because my aunt Fostalina lives there, inDestroyedmichygen. Once her things are in order she’ll come and get me andI will go and live there also. 49[The country-game is a real game:
from 4 Real Change
[They are putting up Real Change posters.][When Bastard slams a poster too hard onto a shack door], a voice frominside says, You, you damage my door and I'll make you wipe your asses withrazor blades, fools! 61I am not sleeping. It's just that Mother expects me to be sleeping, that'swhy my eyes are closed like this.[A man comes and makes love to mother. Darling doesn't like this man]... he never brings us anything. All he does is just come in the darklike a ghost and leap onto the bed with Mother. 64Now mother is moaning; the man, he is panting. The bed is shuffling likea train taking them somewhere important that needs to be reached fast. 64
How they lost their earlier home
Before, we had a real house made of bricks, with a kitchen, sitting roomand two bedrooms. Real windows, real floors, and real doors and a realshower and real taps and real running water and a real toilet you could siton and do whatever you wanted to do. We had real sofas and real beds andreal tables and a real TV and real clothes. Everything real. 63In my dream, which is not a dream-dream because it is also the truth thathappened, the bulldozers appear boiling. ... Everybody is standing on thestreet, waiting to see.... Mother shouts, Darling -comeintothehousenow! But then the bulldozers are already near, big and yellowand terrible and metal teeth and spinning dust.Then the lorries come carrying the police with those guns and baton sticksand its no use hiding in our houses because the bulldozers start bulldozingand bulldozing and we are screaming and screaming. They knock down our houseand Ncane's house and Josephat's house and Bongi's house... Knockiyaniknockiyani knockiyani... 66
5 How they appeared
[new families coming to paradise, erecting shacks, lamenting their lostpossessions.Generally, the men always tried to appear strong; they walked tall, headsupright, arms steady at the sides, and feet firmly planted like trees. SolidJericho walls of men. But when they went out in the bush to relievethemselves and nobody was looking, they fell apart like crumbling towers andwept with the wretched grief of forgotten concubines.And when they returned to the presence of their women and children andeverybody else, they stuck hands deep inside torn pockets until they felttheir dry thighs, kicked little stones out of the way, and erected themselveslike walls again, but then the women, who knew all the ways of weeping andall there was to know about falling apart, would both be deceived; theygently rose from the hearths, beat dust off their skirts, and plantedthemselves like rocks in front of their men and children and shacks, and onlythen did all appear almost tolerable. (p 77)It’s light rain, the kind that licks you. We sit in it and smell thedelicious earth around us. (p 89)
7. Shhhhhh
[Her father comes back from South Africa. He has the Sickness, and Darlingis looking after him, she can't go play and has to make excuses. Her friendsfind out anyhow, eventually.]It's not the lying itself that makes me feel bad but the fact that I'm herelying to my friends."It's no use hiding AIDS, Stina says. When he mentions the Sickness by name,I feel a shortness of breath. I look around to see if there are other peoplewithin earshot.It's lie hiding a thing with horns in a sack. One day the horns will startboring through and come out for everybody to see, Stina says. 100We don’t speak. We just peer in the tired light at the bundle of bones, atthe shrunken head, at the wavy hair, most of it fallen off, at the face thatis all points and edges from bones jutting out, the pinkish-reddish lips, theugly sores, the skin sticking to the bone like somebody ironed it on, thehands and feet like claws.I know then that what really makes a person’s face is the meat; once thatmelts away, you are left with something nobody can even recognize. (p 101)
ch 8 Blak Power
[One of the most powerful chapters of the book. In the 2000s, armed gangs of Robert Mugabe's supporters - relics from theerstwhile rebel groups - attacked the white properties and more so,the moderate opposition group.]The guava season is getting ready to end so now we prowl Budapest like we’rehunting animals. We carefully comb and comb the streets, eyes trained on thetrees so hard our necks could strain. We don’t really talk about it but Iknow all of us are thinking of the end of the season, when Budapest will havenothing for us anymore, of the long, boring months before the next seasonstarts.[They encounter a guard at a house, who accosts them in pompous English- "Who accorded you the permission to perform filthy functions on thisstreet?" - at Bastard who has spit on the street. "I command you toimmediately turn around and retrace your steps." ][For all the vaunted power of Indian English today, this must have been howour forefathers would have sounded.] On Julius Street, we finally find a tree with guavas, not a whole lot butjust enough, and we’re in the middle of harvesting when we hear this crazynoise. We look and they are pouring down Julius like angry black water and weknow immediately that it was a mistake for us to come to Budapest today. Theyare just everywhere, walking, rushing, running, toyi-toying, fists andmachetes and knives and sticks and all sorts of weapons and the flags of thecountry in the air, Budapest quivering with the sound of their blazingvoices:Kill the Boer, the farmer, the khiwa!Strike fear in the heart of the white man!White man, you have no place here, go back, go home!Africa for Africans, Africa for Africans!Kill the Boer, the farmer, the khiwa!They are going to kill us, Sbho says. I can’t see her face because she is ona branch right behind me, but I know, just from the tremor in her voice, howtears are already streaming down her cheeks and that they will eventually getinto her mouth.I don’t want to die. I want my mother, she says. Now she starts to properwail like she is a radio and somebody just turned up the volume.Shut up, what are you doing, you want us to get killed? Godknows says.Shhhh. Sbho, listen, keep quiet. If we don’t make noise, if we just stay hereand be quiet, they won’t see us. They’ll just pass, then we’ll go, Stina saysin a whisper, sounding like he is somebody’s sweet mother. Sbho stops thecrying but you can still hear her sniffling.Ah, what, they won’t do anything to us. Me, I’m not even afraid, Bastardsays, and we all look down at him. He is sitting on a fat branch, one armwrapped around the tree, his cracked feet dangling in the air. It’s like heis just striking a pose and is maybe waiting for someone with a camera.Can’t you hear that they are looking for white people? I’m telling you, theywon’t touch us, we’re not white, he says. We watch him spit, reach out for aguava, wipe it on the picture of the rainbow at the front of his T-shirt, andstart attacking it in quick bites.[The gang break the windows and start breaking down the door with an axe. Eventually the white couple appears. They are given a piece of paper- perhaps a document saying that they should leave. ]No, you listen, the white man says, like he didn’t just hear the boss warnhim about telling black men to listen.I am an African, he says. This is my f*cking country too, my father was bornhere, I was born here, just like you! His voice is so full of pain it’s as ifthere is something that is searing him deep in his blood. The lion has baredits fangs now. The veins at the sides of the white man’s neck are like cords,his face dark with anger. But nobody minds him. They are leaving and storminginto the house, their chants about Africa for Africans filling the air. Thewhite man and woman remain standing there near the guard like sad plants,just standing and looking after the gang; maybe they are afraid of theweapons and that’s why they don’t try to stop them or follow them inside.What exactly is an African? Godknows asks.After a long while, after we are tired from sitting in the tree, the smashingstops and they come out of the house. The boss walks in front, ax dangling athis side. They are no longer making that much noise and they look a littletired even. Like they have been exorcising demons and devils in there. Theydo not talk to the white people, they just grab them and lead them away,together with the guard, herding them like cattle. When the group passesunder our tree, the woman looks up like God whispered to her to look up, likesomething told her we were up here. I see a black shadow flash over her kindof beautiful face; it’s like she’s a chameleon trying to change color andtake ours.I cannot look away from the woman’s eyes, but I’m ashamed that she is seeingus up in her tree, ashamed for her that we are seeing them being taken awaylike that. The black shadow remains on her face, and she keeps looking, likemaybe she wants to pluck us out of the tree with her eyes, and I begin tothink we will fall out from being looked at like that. We know from the look,because eyes can talk, that she hates us, not just a little bit but a wholelot. She doesn’t say anything; they move her past, and we exhale.Where are they taking them? Godknows says, sounding like himself now.Maybe they are going to kill them, he answers himself. Maybe they’ll takethem to the forest so their screams for help are not heard, and kill themthere.When we are sure they are gone-gone we quickly climb down the tree and headstraight for the house. It’s the first time we are entering a white people’shouse so we pause by the door, like we don’t know how to walk through adoor. Godknows, who is at the front, wipes his feet on the mat that says WipeYour Paws but then just keeps standing. Bastard comes from behind, pushesGodknows aside, and steps in like he is the real owner of the house and hehas the keys. We all pour in after him.
Inside the palace
Inside, the cold air hits us and we put our hands on our bare arms and feelgoose bumps. We look around, surprised.How is it cold in here when it is so hot outside? Sbho says in a whisper, butnobody answers her, which means we don’t know. Around us everything is strewnabout and broken. Chairs, the TV, the large radio, the beautiful things wedon’t know. We stand in the wreckage; nobody says it but we are disappointedby the senseless damage, as if it’s our own things that they have destroyed.In the sitting room, we stand before the large mask on the wall and stare atthe black face, the eyes gouged out. It is a long, thin face, white liningthe eyebrows and the lips. The forehead is high and protrudes a little, andyellow dots divide it in half. The nose is long, and the round mouth is open,like it’s letting out a howl. And finally, a horn grows at the top of thehead.[...]
The gallery
In a very large picture that takes up a big part of the wall, a tall, thinman with graying hair parted at the side is dressed in a suit that matcheshis kind of blue eyes. He holds a cup and saucer in one hand. His free handis raised slightly, like he is speaking with it. At the bottom of the pictureare the words The Hon. Ian Douglas Smith; Rhodesians never die. In the nextpicture, a little toddler stands holding hands with a monkey. They aredressed in identical blue thingies that are half shirts, half vests, likethey are twins. And in another photo, next to the twins, a nice-looking woman with a roundface smiles. She is all bling: a sparkling crown sits on her head, with anecklace and earrings to match. The picture is not even interesting, andshe is not even crazy beautiful, but we all stand there and lift our eyesto her like maybe we are looking at a flag.Why does she look like that? Bastard says.Like what? Sbho says.Like that thing is heavy, Bastard says.It’s called a crown, I say. And she is called a queen. I know her.How do you know her? Bastard says.She was at our house. A long time ago.You’re lying. What would a white person even be doing at your kaka house?Bastard says.Yes, she was. Under the bed. Under Mother of Bones’ bed.The queen was under your grandmother’s bed? Godknows says.Mnncccc. Sbho sucks her teeth and rolls her eyes.Her face was on this British money that Mother of Bones kept in her Bibleunder the bed. That’s how I know her, I say....
The sheets in the bedrooom
In the bedroom everything is smashed as well but we still get on the bed andjump on it, except Sbho, who stands in front of a broken mirror and paintsher lips red, then sprays herself with this blue bottle of perfume. We jumpand we jump and we jump, the springs lifting us so high we raise our handsand almost slap the white ceiling each time we go up. Then after we get tiredof jumping we get under the sheets and close our eyes and make snoringsounds. The bed is soft and smells so nice I don’t even want to get up fromit.We are like Goldidogs, I say from under my sheets. The three bears arecoming, I say, but nobody says anything and I know it’s because they neverread the story back in school.Let’s do the adult thing, Sbho says, and we giggle. Now her lips look likeshe’s been drinking blood, and she smells expensive. We look at each othershy-like, like we are seeing one another for the first time. Then Bastardgets on top of Sbho. Then Godknows moves over but I push him away because Iwant Stina, not chapped-buttocks Godknows, to get on top of me. Stina climbson me and lies still and we all giggle and giggle. I feel him crushing mystomach under his heavy body and I’m thinking what I’d do if it burst openand things splattered all over.
The Phone call
We are lying like that, giggling and doing the adult thing on the whitepeople’s soft bed, when we hear the ringing. We jump up and look around,unsure what to do.What is that? Godknows says.It’s a phone, Stina says.It’s a phone! It’s a phone! It’s a phone! we yell, running out of the bedroomtowards the sound. We hunt for the phone in the living room and quickly findit under a towel. Stina flips the phone open and says, Hallo. Then he laughsand gives it to Sbho, who laughs and gives it to Bastard, who laughs andgives it to me. I am the one who speaks better English, so I say, Hallo, howare you, how can I help you this afternoon?Who is this? a voice says on the other end. It is surprised, the way yousound when you find something you were not expecting.It’s me, I say.What? Who are you?Darling.Darling?Yes, Darling.Okay, is this a joke? How did you get the phone?No, it’s not a joke, and I got the phone from Bastard, I say.Bastard? Okay, wait, can you just give the phone to the owner?The owner is not here.Where is she? Where are they?We don’t know. They took them away.What? Who is we? Who took them away? I can hear from her voice that she ismaybe frowning. I also remember that I haven’t been using the word ma’am likewe were taught to at school and I almost want to start the conversation overjust so I can do it right.The gang, ma’am, I say, doing it the right way now.What gang?The one with the weapons and flags, ma’am.Where did they take them?I don’t know, ma’am.Jesus, Dan, can you find out what’s going on here? I just called Mom and Dadand some weird African kid has Mom’s phone, the woman says to somebody calledDan.By now everybody is looking at me like I’m something and as for me I’m justproud that I’m finally talking to a white person, which I haven’t ever donein my life. Not like this. Then a new voice, a man’s voice, comes on. When hestarts speaking to me in my language I laugh; I have never heard a whiteperson speak my language before. It sounds funny, but I’m a littledisappointed because I want to keep speaking in English.The white man asks me what has happened and I tell him everything, but Idon’t tell him the part about us stealing the guavas. In the end he tells methat I should put the phone back and that we should get out of the housebecause it’s not our house and we have no right to be there. I close thephone and put it back under the towel, where we found it, but I don’t tellthe others what the man said about getting out of the house. I am alreadythinking of how many people from Paradise can live here in this bighouse. Maybe five families, maybe eight.
Meal
In the kitchen, water gushes from opened taps and we stop them. The table andchairs have been overturned, and plates and cups and pots and gadgets litterthe floor. When we open the fridge we find it untouched, which surprisesus. We gorge ourselves on the bread, bananas, yogurt, drinks, chicken,mangoes, rice, apples, carrots, milk, and whatever food we find. We eatthings we have never seen before, things whose names we don’t even know.Wee fawgoat the fowks, wee fawgoat the fowks, Godknows says, sounding like awhite man, and we giggle. He starts towards the cupboards and rummages andrummages and rummages, and then he is back with the glinting forks and knivesand we eat like proper white people. When we miss our mouths we laugh, flingthe things away, and go back to using our hands. We stuff ourselves and westuff ourselves, stuff ourselves until we almost cannot breathe.I want to defecate, Godknows says, and we all leave the kitchen to hunt forthe toilet. Our stomachs are so full they could explode. We walk likeelephants because we are heavy, and the food has made us tired. We find thetoilet at the end of the long passage. There is a big white round thing wherethey bathe, then there is the glass shower, the soaps, the gadgets andthings. There is also a terrible reeking smell,and we look at the other end,and there, near the toilet, we see the words Blak Power written in brownfeces on the large bathroom mirror.
9 For Real
[Bornfree's funeral]The mourners stop and form a circle. The coffin has just been set in thegrave.... A tall man with big hair ... begins to speak. The mourners hush, butstill you can hear that there is something underneath the silence. Likeanger....His voice rises like smoke, past us, towards God. The man speaksabout country and runoff and heroes and democracy and murder and freedomand human rights and what-what. The sound of it maddens the mourners; it’sas if they’ve just been insulted. The BBC man clicks and clicks away at hiscamera like he is possessed....The Prophet Revelations Bitchington Mborroraises his Bible and starts saying holy things. The mourners quiet. Hekeeps going and going until I begin to wonder if he doesn’t get tired oftalking to a god who doesn’t even do anything to show that he is a god. 136
10 How They Left
Look at them leaving in droves, the children of the land, just look atthem leaving in droves. Those with nothing are crossing borders. Thosewith strength are crossing borders. Thos with ambitions are crossingborders. Those with hopes are crossing borders. Those with loss arecrossing borders. Those in pain are crossing borders. Moving, running,emigrating, going, deserting, walking, quitting, flying, fleeing -- toall over, to countries near and far, to countries unheard of, tocountries whose names they cannot pronounce. They are leaving indroves. 145When things fall apart, the children of the land scurry and scatter likebirds escaping a burning sky. They flee their own wretched land so theirhunger may be pacified in foreign lands, their tears wiped away in strangelands, the wounds of their despair bandaged in far away lands, theirblistered prayers muttered in the darkness of queer lands.Look at the children of the land leaving in droves, leaving their own landwith bleeding wounds on their bodies and shock on their faces and blood intheir hearts and hunger in their stomachs and grief in theirfootsteps. Leaving their mothers and fathers behind, leaving theirumbilical cords underneath the soil, leaving the bones of their ancestorsin 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 thesame again because you cannot be the same once you leave behind who andwhat you are, you just cannot be the same.Look at them leaving in droves despite knowing they will be welcomed withrestraint in those strange lands because they do not belong, knowing theywill have to sit on one buttock because they must not sit comfortably lestthey be asked to rise and leave, knowing they will speak in dampenedwhispers because they must not let their voices drown those of the ownersof the land, knowing they will have to walk on their toes because they mustnot leave footprints on the new earth let they be mistaken for those whowant to claim the land as theirs. Look at them leaving in droves, arm inarm with loss and lost, look at them leaving in droves. 146
11 Destroyedmichygen
Finally [Vodloza] tied a bone attached to a rainbow-colored string aroundmy waist and said, This is your weapon, it will fight off all evil inthat America, never ever take it off, you hear? But then when I got toAmerica the airport dog barked and barked and sniffed me, and the womanin the uniform took me aside and waved the stick around me and the stickmade a nting-nting sound and the woman said, Are you carrying anyweapons? And I nodded and showed them my weapon from Vodloza, and AuntFostalina said, What is this crap? And took it off and threw it in a bin,Now I have no weapon to fight evil in America. 150When the microwave says nting, fat boy TK takes out a pizza and eatsit. When the microwave says nting, he takes out the chicken wings. And thenit’s the burritos and hot dogs. Eat, eat, eat. All that food TK eats in oneday, me and Mother and Mother of Bones would eat in maybe two or three daysback home. p.156-157The uncles and aunts bring goat insides and cook ezangaphathi and sadza andmbhida and occasionally they will bring amacimbi, which is my number onefavorite relish, umfushwa, and other foods from home, and people descend onthe food like they haven’t eaten all their lives. They tear off the sthwalawith their bare hands, hastily roll and dip it in relish and pause briefly tolook at one another before shoving it in their mouths. Then they carefullychew, tilting their heads to the side as if the food speaks and they arelistening to the taste, and then their faces light up. (p 161)After the food comes the music. They play Majavaina, play Solomon Skuza,play Ndux Malax, Miriam Makeba, Lucky Dube, Brenda Fassie, Paul Matavire,Hugh Masekela, Thomas Mapfumo, Oliver Mtukudzi - old songs I remember fromwhen I was little, from Mother and Father and adults singing them. p.161
12 Wedding
No matter how green the maize look in America, it is not real. They call itcorn here, and it comes out all wrong, like small, sweet, too soft. I don’teven bother with it anymore because eating it is really a disappointingthing, it feels like I’m just insulting my teeth. p.164[in the ladies room]I am washing my hands and admiring my interesting face when a voice says:Are you from Africa too?I look in the mirror, and this woman in a blue dress is standing theresmiling at me. I notice the smell of her sweet perfume is all over, like aliving thing. I smile back. it’s not exactly a smile-smile just the briefbaring of teeth. That’s what you do in America: you smile at people youdon’t know and you smile at people you don’t even like and you smile for noreason.... Can you just say something in your language? she says. I laugh asmall laugh, because what do you say to that? 174[the young Zimbabwean, Dumi, who once dated Aunt Fostalina, isgetting married to a grossly obeseAmerican (white) woman, primarily for his visa papers.Mandla is the completely spoilt son of the bride, "a pretty little boy withflowing hair". presumably from an earliermarriage. ][Mandla throws the ball] and it hits an old lady in a pink dress on thebreast. I stop breathing, but the old lady just smiles like nothing’shappened, picks up the ball from her lap, and holds it out to Mandla.Isn’t he a sweetheart? she says ...He had too much candy earlier, Dumi says, his voice explaining-like, and Iwant to laugh because what has candy really got to do with a spoiled kid?That’s when Mandla throws the ball at me, and by the time I see it, it hasalready hit my right eye, one of the spike thingies [on the ball] jabbingthe inside. The pain is something else. Before I know it, I have forgottenthat I’m at a wedding, in a hall full of people, forgotten that I’m inAmerica. Just before Aunt Fostalina sharply tells me to sit down, I grabthe little brat, go pha-pha-pha with three quick slaps, and rap his headwith my knuckles, twice.It’s only when I sit back down and look around that I reaize what I havedone The white people have already gasped... and the silence has alreadydescended. It stays in the air like a stain. Tshaka Zulu... shouts...Do notto fear. This is just how we handle unruly children in our culture....Nobody laughs with him; there is this hot fire of silence. 182
15 Hitting crossroads
We are cruising like that and I’m being forced to listen to this stupidRihanna song that everybody at school used to play like it was an anthem orsomething. Well, maybe the song isn’t stupid, it’s only that I just gotgenerally sick of that whole Rihanna business, the way she was on the newsand everything, I know her crazy boyfriend beat her up but I don’t think shehad to be all over, like her face was a humanitarian crisis, like it was thef*cking Sudan. p.218[In zimbabwe she once saw a sports car. In her mind, it is THE car shewill have. Then, while cruising with Kristal and Marina, she finds the carin the Borders parking lot.]I see my car. I don’t even hesitate, I run to it yelling, My Lamborghini,Lamboghini, Lamborghini Reventón! Maybe I start freaking out, I don’t know,but Marina is pulling me away and asking what’s wrong with me.Do you know how much that car costs? she says.How much? I say.Almost a couple of million dollars, she says.You’re lying. Millions? For that little car? I say.Duh Kristal says.You can Google it; that little car is actually one of the most expensivecars out there, Marina says.Well, I say, and leave it there. I stop to let a car pass before I crossover to the mall. The thing is, I don’t want to say with my own mouth thatif the car costs that much then it means I’ll never own it, and if I can’town it, does that mean I’m poor, and if so, what is America for, then? 225
Tshaka Zulu
Being in Tshaka Zulu's room is like being in a museum of remembrance orsomething - the walls are choking with things: newspaper clippings ofNelson Mandela when he came out of jail and stuff, pictures of ourcountry's president when he first became president and he had all his hair,a picture of Kwame Nkrumah, Kofi Annan, a big picture of Desmond Tutu,pictures of Miriam Makeba, Brenda Fassie, Hugh Masekela, Lucky Dube, anewspaper clipping of Credo Mutwa, framed pictures of Bébé Manga, LeletiKhumalo, Wangari Maathai, and so on. p.235Others with names like myths, names like puzzles, names we had never heardbefore: Virgilio, Balamugunthan, Faheem, Abdulrahman, Aziz, Baako,Dae-Hyun, Ousmane, Kimatsu. When it was hard to say the many strange names,we called them by their countries. So how on earth do you do this, Sri Lanka? Mexico, are you coming or what? Is it really true you sold a kidney to come to America, India? Guys, just give Tshaka Zulu a break, the guy is old, I'm just saying. We know you despise this job, Sudan, but deal with it, man. Come, Ethiopia, move, move, move; Israel, Kazakhstn, Niger, brothers,let's go! 242
16 How they lived
Because we were not in our own country, we could not use our own languages,and so when we spoke our voices came out bruised. When we talked, ourtongues thrashed madly in our mouths, staggered like drunken men. Becausewe were not using our languages we said things we did not mean; what wereally wanted to say remained folded inside, trapped. ...When we were alone we summoned the horses of our languages and mountedtheir backs and galloped past skyscrapers. Always, we were reluctant tocome back down.How hard it was to get to America – harder than crawling through the anusof a needle. For the visas and passports, we begged, despaired, lied,groveled, promised, charmed, bribed – anything to get us out of thecountry. ... 240To send us off properly, our elders spilled tobacco on the dry earth tosummon the spirits of the ancestors for our protection. Unlike in yearslong gone, the spirits did not come dancing from the land beneath. Theycrawled. They stalled. They were hungry. They wanted blood and meat andmillet beer, they wanted sacrifices, they wanted gifts. And save for a fewgrains of tobacco, we had nothing to give, absolutely nothing. And so thespirits just gazed at us with eyes milked dry of care. Between themselvesthey whispered: How will these ones ever be whole in that ’Melika, as faraway from the graves of the ancestors as it is? 240-241We would not be moved, we would not listen; we were going to America. Inthe footsteps of those looted black sons and daughters, we were going, yes,we were going. And when we got to American we took our dreams, looked atthem tenderly as if they were newly born children, and put them away; wewould not be pursuing them. We would never be the things we had wanted tobe: doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers. 241And because we were illegal and afraid to be discovered we mostly kept toourselves and shied away from those who were not like us.... We did not wanttheir wrath, we did not want their curiosity, we did not want anyattention.We did not meet stares and we avoided gazes. We hid our real names, gavefalse ones when asked. We built mountains between us and them, we dugrivers, we planted thorns – we had paid so much to be in American and wedid not want to lose it all. 242Here our own parents come to us in dreams. They do not touch us, they donot speak to us.When we die, our children will not know how to wail, how to mourn us theright way. They will not go mad with grief, they will not pin black clothin their arms, they will not spill beer and tobacco on the earth, theywill not sing till their voices are hoarse. They will not put our platesand cups on our graves; they will not send us away with mphafa trees. Wewill leave for the land of the dead naked, without the things we need toenter the castle of our ancestors. Because we will not be proper, thespirits will not come running to meet us, and so we wait and wait andwait - forever waiting in the air like flags of unsung countries. 250
Language
Because we were not in our country, we could not use our own languages, andso when we spoke our voices came out bruised. When we talked, our tonguesthrashed madly in our mouths, staggered like drunken men. Because we were notusing our languages we said things we did not mean; what we really wanted tosay remained folded inside, trapped. In America we did not always have thewords. It was only when we were by ourselves that we spoke in our realvoices. When we were alone we summoned the horses of our languages andmounted their backs and galloped past skyscrapers. Always, we were reluctantto come back down. (p. 242)---I’m supposed to start teaching him my language because he says he and hisbrother are going to my country so he can shoot an elephant, something he hasdreamed of doing ever since he was a boy. I don’t know where my languagecomes in – like does he want to ask the elephant if he wants to be killed orsomething? (p 268)When America put up the big reward for bin Laden, we made spears out ofbranches and went hunting for him. We had just appeared in Paradise and weneeded new games while we waited for our parents to take us back to our realhomes. At first we banged on the tin shacks yelling for bin Laden to comeout, and when he didn’t we ran to the bushes at the end of the shanty, Welooked in the thickets; climbed trees, looked under rocks, We searchedeverywhere. Then we went and climbed Fambeki, but by the time we got to thetop, we were hot and bored. It was like looking for air; there was just nobin Laden. (pp. 288-289)
Singing Photos
Let’s sing Lady Gaga, Sbho says.No, let’s sing the national anthem like we used to at school assembly, Isay.Yes, let’s sing, and me, I’ll stand in front because I’ll be president,Bastard says. We line up nicely by Merjury’s shack and sing at the top of ourvoices, sing until the little kids come and gather around us, but they knowthey must not join.Wayyyt, wayyyt, wih neeeeed tuh tayke a pictchur, whereh ease mah camera?Godknows cries, making like he is the NGO man, and we laugh and we laugh andwe laugh. Gondknows runs and picks up one of those bricks with holes in themand holds it like it’s a camera and takes and takes and takes pictures. Wesmile and we strike poses and we look pretty and we shout, Change! Cheese!Change!
Eating
We ate like pigs, like wolves, like dignitaries; we ate like vultures, likestray dogs, like monsters; we ate like kings. We ate for all our past hunger,for our parents and brothers and sisters and relatives and friends who werestill back there. We uttered their names between mouthfuls, conjured up theirhungry faces and chapped lips – eating for those who could not be with us toeat for themselves. And when we were full we carried our dense bodies withthe dignity of elephants – if only our country could see us in America, seeus eat like kings in a land that was not ours.---When things fall apart, the children of the land scurry and scatter likebirds escaping a burning sky. They flee their own wretched land so theirhunger may be pacified in foreign lands, their tears wiped away in strangelands, the wounds of their despair bandaged in faraway lands, their blisteredprayers muttered in the darkness of queer lands.Look at them leaving in droves, the children of the land, just look at themleaving in droves. Those with nothing are crossing borders. Those withstrength are crossing borders. Those with ambitions are crossingborders. Those with hopes are crossing borders. Those in pain are crossingborders. Moving, running, emigrating, going, deserting, walking, quitting,flying, fleeing – to all over, to countries near and far, to countriesunheard of, to countries whose names they cannot pronounce. They are leavingin droves. (p 145)
Food memories
Well, what is happening over here is that your mother is finishing cookingistshwala and macimbis, and Sbho is standing there watching her and eating aguava. When Chipo announces this, I get a strange ache in my heart. My throatgoes dry; my tongue salivates. I am remembering the taste of all thesethings, but remembering is not tasting, and it is painful. I feel tears startto come to my eyes and I don’t wipe them off.links:http://xokigbo.wordpress.com/2013/05/
author bio
NoViolet Bulawayo, the pen name of Elizabeth Tshele, was born and raised inZimbabwe and while the 32-year-old author currently lives in the U.S., shehas already made a name for herself in her home country and continent. In2011, she won the Caine Prize for African Writing, sometimes referred to asthe African Booker, for her short story Hitting Budapest.http://www.montrealgazette.com/mobile/entertainment/books/NoViolet+Bulawayo+impresses+with+debut+novel/8878275/story.htmlNoviolet Bulawayo is a Zimbabwean author who moved to Michigan when shewas eighteen years of age and she is currently s Stegner Fellow atStanford University in California. In 2011 she won the Caine Prize forAfrican Writing and in 2009 she was shortlisted for the South African PENStudzinsi Award. A pretty impressive resume and this is her first novel,straight onto the Man Booker Prize Longlist!http://www.csmonitor.com/Books/Book-Reviews/2013/0527/We-Need-New-NamesWith the drumbeat of political turmoil rising around her, Darling is soonsent to America to live with an aunt. But if Zimbabwe was a land of obviouswant, for Darling, America has a hollow ache to it as well. She bristles atMichigan’s brutal winters, layered with snow "as white as clean teeth," andis haunted by the barrage of pop culture politics that seem to dictateteenage life in America: Do you like Justin Bieber? Do you prefer Burger Kingor McDonalds? Have you seen "High School Musical"?
Reviews
http://xokigbo.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/Now, that is brilliant, delectable writing. It gets better; you must read twochapters, How They Left and How They Lived. Bulawayo lapses into haunting,almost hallucinatory prose-poetry, the emotion and passion shake you to yourcore. She grieves and grieves and grieves and she will not be consoled, ohshe grieves, this child that saw something awful. Read those chapters to themost stone-hearted immigration official in America and political asylum isyours. The words seep into your bones and slap you awake.--Dambudzo Marechera lives in this book, primly flicking ash off thecigarette he bummed off his white benefactors. Bulawayo is edgy,unflinching, eyes dead set on your conscience until you gasp and look awayin shame and disgust. This book can "pinch a rock and make it wince", sosays the book. The book makes it clear: The poor have inherited a newburden after apartheid and post-colonialism – home grown tyranny. Africa’sleaders are in a hurry to build Paris out of the slums, on the backs of thedead poor. Bulawayo describes the bulldozing of a shanty town in a voice soclinical you hurt from the pain. Yes, much of black rule is black on blackcrime. Bulawayo is supercilious, kneading condescension into the reader’sconsciousness. You learn to hate Africa’s benefactors, as poverty monkeysfor the NGO cameras. f*ck Bono, her muse seems to mutter inrage. Bulawayo’s skeptical eyes see everything and point out all theadjectives, Africa is about pejoratives and isms: Commercialism,capitalism, consumerism, rampant consumption and materialism, theclutter. There is a looming devastation; Africa is the nuclear waste dumpof the West’s offal and detritus, a hellhole where the West’s bad ideas andproducts go to die.Steely-eyed and square-jawed, this pretty book that snarls takes careful aimat NGOs, liberal do-gooders and displays Bono-charity devastation oneveryone’s conscience with exquisite attention to detail. Here is the newchurch, the new Christianity run amok. And her eyes do not miss BlackAfrica’s share of the caricature, of charlatanry. In this book, the newChristianity and AIDS link arms to bulldoze communities and countries. Withthe awesome power of words, Bulawayo performs a rare feat of bringing AIDSinto the reader’s living room:Exile awaits migrating sprits as Africa empties herself of her beautifulchildren. When Darling the protagonist escapes Paradise for America, she soonfinds that suffering and despair are universal conditions of mankind, exileis not much better than the hell that was Paradise in Africa. The second halfof this book about life in America is what the gifted writer and fellowZimbabwean Brian Chikwava should have written instead of his HarareNorth. Here, Bulawayo’s prose fairly sings, breaks into a beautiful trot andbelts out haunting truths about life in Babylon for many immigrants. Even theentry is jarring:A few days before I left, Mother took me to Vodloza, who made me smoke from agourd, and I sneezed and sneezed and he smiled and said, The ancestors areyour angels, they will bear you to America. Then he spilled tobacco on theearth and said to someone I could not see: Open the way for your wanderingcalf, you, Vusamazulu, pave the skies, summon your fathers, Mpabanga andNqabayezwe and Mahlathini, and draw your mighty spears to clear the paths andprotect the child from dark spirits on her journey. Deliver her well to thatstrange land where you and those before you never dreamed of setting foot. (p150)Finally he tied a bone attached to a rainbow-colored string around my waistand said, This is your weapon, it will fight off all evil in that America,never ever take it off, you hear? But then when I got to America the airportdog barked and barked and sniffed me, and the woman in the uniform took measide and waved the stick around me and the stick made a nting-nting soundand the woman said, Are you carrying any weapons? And I nodded and showedthem my weapon from Vodloza, and Aunt Fostalina said, What is this crap? Andtook it off and threw it in a bin, Now I have no weapon to fight evil inAmerica.---biohttp://www.bookbrowse.com/biographies/index.cfm/author_number/2360/noviolet-bulawayoBulawayo was born in 1981 and raised in the Tsholotsho District,Zimbabwe. She attended Njube High School and later Mzilikazi High School forher A levels.Bulawayo completed her college education in the US, studying at KalamazooValley Community College, and earning bachelor's and master's degrees inEnglish from Texas A&M University-Commerce and Southern Methodist Universityrespectively. In 2010, NoViolet earned her MFA at Cornell University whereshe was a recipient of the Truman Capote Fellowship, and most recently, alecturer of English. She is now a Wallace Stegner Fellow at StanfordUniversity.In 2011 Bulawayo won the Caine Prize for African Writing for her short storyHitting Budapest about a gang of street children in a Zimbabweanshantytown. Her novel entitled We Need New Names was released in 2013, andwas named on the Man Booker Prize 2013 longlist.
An interview with NoViolet Bulawayo
http://www.bookbrowse.com/author_interviews/full/index.cfm/author_number/2360/noviolet-bulawayoDo you have a writing community, ie, other Zimbabwean or African writers youinteract with or you find the place isolating and if so is this isolationgood or bad?I'm in an MFA program so yes, I have a writing community. I have nointeraction with Zimbabwean and African writers on a workshop level, so onthat basis, I am "isolated." It's a double-edged sword — In the past I wouldcrave that specific common ground that would come with interacting withwriters from my own background, and that happened when I felt like my matesdidn't "get" what I was trying to do. I'm over that now, not having thatcommon ground means I have to forge a new one, and for me that ishumanity. It means I have to stand on another level, to go beyond"Zimbabwean-ness" and "African-ness" in my writing, that space without the"burdens" of identity. Actually I've come to appreciate it as liberating, soI guess I can confidently say, it's good, very good, even though it took me awhile to get here.What is your inspiration and does that influence what you write about? Anyfavourate writers?Humanity. "Womanity." My homeland. As for writers I'd say Yvonne Verainspires me more than any other writer because I care about the same thingsshe cares about; from the poetic grace of language to (feminist) themes tothe writer's spirit of courage, that bravery to say things that would notnormally be said. If she wasn't in the picture I don't think I'd have thecourage to write about things I'm writing about. In as much as she is aninfluence, however, I believe I'm also my own writer and doing my ownthing. Don't get me started on my favorite writers but they include MaxineHong Kingston, Edwidge Danticat, Jean Toomer, Barbara Kingsolver, DanielDefoe, The Brontes, Jhumpa Lahiri.The late Yvonne Vera, Tsitsi Dangarembga and now more recently Petina Gappahare the most internationally well known female writers from Zimbabwe. Why doyou think there are fewer women writers from Zimbabwe who write?That is true, and sad. Of course there are a host of reasons, but I think italso speaks to the trying circ*mstances of African women, not just Zimbabweanwomen by the way, as the group that comes last in everything and writing isno exception. Of cause this is compounded by the politics of the publishingindustry. Still, I believe Zimbabwean women have compelling stories and thosewho are writing are doing a good job representing, and I'd like to especiallythank those who are writing from Zimbabwe, the little known and unknownones. To me those are the bad-ass writers, imagine knowing you will never beread beyond your borders, never be an international star but still writingall the same! That's writing as speaking, as insisting on one's presence andI think that's deep.What has being shortlisted for the PEN/Studzinski Literary Award, let alonehighly commended mean to you as a young writer?It's an honor and a necessary boost and I am very humbled and grateful forthe recognition. I can only hope it also means something to other youngwriters out there; and I'm speaking as one who would not have dreamt ofentering a couple of years ago because I wouldn't have thought my work wasgood enough. This is our time baby, and "Yes We Can!"When do we expect your first book and what will it about?I am working on a novel and a short story collection, and I'd say I'm worriedabout rendering them in best form than when they are coming out, so I have noidea. Right now my priority is to write-write-write. As for "about-ness,"hmmm, may I keep that as a surprise?
Interview
http://caineprize.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/interview-with-noviolet-bulawayo-on-her_12.htmlWEDNESDAY, 12 JUNE 2013Former Caine Prize Winner NoViolet Bulawayo’s searingly powerful debut novelWe Need New Names has been greeted with widespread critical acclaim.NoViolet talks to Irenosen Okojie about being a writer in diaspora, herwriter’s process and the importance of the Caine Prize.IO: Your novel is a powerful depiction of the fractured lives of childrenliving in a shanty in Zimbabwe. How important was it to tell their story?The book was written during Zimbabwe’s lost decade. If you follow Zimbabweanpolitics, that’s when the country really came undone for the first time sinceZimbabwean independence.For me that was really shocking because I had a beautiful childhood, so tosee what was happening was devastating. My family’s still back home. We’veheard those stories of there being no food in the stores, violence because ofgovernment elections, activists disappearing, some of them turning updead. It just became important, especially to parallel the media narrative. Iwas living in the west and seeing things through the internet. I felt someoneneeded to tell an intimate story that showed what was happening on the groundand captured the full essence of characters. Having kids really allowed me todo that, they’re kids but disconnected from what’s going on. They stilllived, laughed and played despite what was happening. It became a big,necessary project for me.IO: Ten year old Darling as a narrator rings authentic and true. We’rereading about these children having to cope with horrible circ*mstances yetbecause it’s told through a child’s eyes there’s an other worldliness aboutit. How hard was it to get her voice right?It wasn’t hard, probably because I emerged writing through craft and thechild narrator. As a creator, it’s something that I’d worked on since Istarted writing. When it came to Darling, I was a bit more seasoned. You haveto play on your strengths and that’s what I did. I come from a culture wherewe just have character. Put a bunch of kids together and they shine, theysurvive. I had to go back to my own childhood and my childhood friends forthat voice. It’s honest and that’s important. You don’t want somebody to readit and think that doesn’t sound right.IO: There’s bleakness in their circ*mstances but it’s also very funny. Howdid you strike that balance and was it deliberate?I come from a place of laughter, absence of humour is not normal. Whatever wewere doing, laughter was a constant dynamic in our lives no matter thecirc*mstances. I was talking to my cousin about a recent funeral backhome. And she said people were funny, even at a funeral. It doesn’t have tobe depressing. I needed to make that conscious decision to remember to bringin humour. Although it was partly deliberate and partly not, that’s how I amin my everyday life. I’m not a serious person. My personality also comesthrough my writing, I have to be pleased. Also, I was aware that I wasworking from a politically charged space, very dense material. I needed tofind a way to make it tolerable to read, that was important. Not just withthis book. For me it’s important that whoever starts reading my work doesn’tput it down. Laughter carries you through and I have to connect to thereader. Humour allows me to do that.IO: The second half of the novel is set in America where Darling findsherself facing a different set of challenges. Did you draw on your ownexperiences?I think all fiction is drawn from real experiences, people will tell you it’sfiction but it’s real. It’s either your own reality or somebody else’s. Mymoving to America is even more recent than my ten year old self. It had tobe convincing, some of my personality needed to appear on the page but alsostealing from others, family, friends, people I knew. It’s interesting, whenmy family members read the book; I get phone calls saying so I saw such andsuch in the book! It’s one of those things; if it comes into my writing Idon’t resist it.IO: How has being a writer in diaspora shaped your writing and how do youthink it’s affected your sense of identity?It’s quite interesting that I had to leave home to discover myself as awriter. I come from a culture where I never saw writers growing up. I readbooks and most of the books were by western writers. But beyond that, writingwas never a career option to me. You had to be a nurse, doctor, a lawyer,which I went to the US to study or an engineer. I know that being in thediaspora for me meant I was given the golden opportunity to come into myself,to study creative writing which I wouldn’t have done in Zimbabwe. I wouldhave studied a Masters in Finance. With the cost of leaving home came thebenefit of discovery. For me it was when I embraced my Zimbabweaness more. Athome, it wasn’t necessary; you’re surrounded by Zimbabweans so it was neveran issue. Your race is never an issue because you’re living in a space whereeveryone looks like you. Then going out, you realise, I’m not from here. I’mthis other thing. This other thing is not always at home in a space that canbe both welcoming and marginalising. Which is why I’m obsessed with myhomeland in my writing. It’s certainly made me fall in love with my rootseven more. I can’t find that grounding sense of identity where I am which iswhy when it comes to identifying myself as a Zimbabwean writer, I feel Iam. I don’t just want to be called a writer. For me that identity isimportant, it meant survival and grounding. We’re living in a time wheretechnology’s so prevalent. This book wouldn’t have been written withoutthat. I was getting on Facebook, seeing people and teachers updating aboutwhat was happening back home and that fed into the whole process.You won the Caine Prize for Hitting Budapest. How did that help as a launchpad for your career?When the Caine Prize is mentioned, I remember I’ve spent all the money. On aserious note, it gave me confidence especially because it happened at a timewhen I was just starting out. In as much as I love writing and know it’s whatI’m supposed to be doing but when you’re young you really think aboutthings. You know you’re expected to be doing something that’s moresecure. You live in a practical world of bills, of supporting familyespecially those of us in the diaspora. You have to be sensible but it showedme that I could make it.How important do you think the Caine Prize is for profiling African writers?It’s the biggest prize in Africa, it’s very necessary. There aren’t so manythings happening on the continent itself. It’s a western prize in a sense butthat doesn’t undermine it. It’s still important, whether you’re looking atpeople who’ve been short listed or won, they’ve gone on to do amazingthings. I’d like it to be more engaged on the continent. I know there was aworkshop run which is cool. It gives people the opportunity to workshop whenwe don’t have a strong workshop culture. But I’d like to see a Caine Prizewinner do a residency in Africa. Send that person to a school to work withkids. Young people are very impressionable and I think that would make adifference.From Hitting Budapest, the story then evolved into a novel. Tell us about thetrajectory.It’s the first chapter in the novel so people think that it actually camefirst. The thing is, it actually came while I was working on the novel. Itwas in a different form then. When I got to Hitting Budapest, the story foundits pulse. Then I had to rework the book and I reworked it a milliontimes. Moving it forward and shaping it around these kids.What’s your writer’s process?I don’t have a fancy, high sounding process myself. I try and envision astory in my head. Write as much as I can inside my head. Maybe that’s becauseI was brought up on hearing stories. I think of a story first versus itwritten down. Then I’ll write it in my notebook, edit as much as I can to getthe language right. Then I bring it to the gadgets. I’m laid back and I don’twrite every day. Writing isn’t always writing in terms of doing the physicalact, I’m processing things in my head all the time. I’m an observer oflife. I think about things and my characters. So I’m always in one way oranother, involved in the process. I try not to stress, I’m not a seriousperson. I don’t take things seriously. There are times when I look at my workand think, that’s interesting or that could have been better! I think it’snecessary to be objective but the main thing is to enjoy what I’m doing. Ienjoy it more if I don’t over think it. I just work from instincts. It’sinteresting to hear intelligent people or critics discuss things I may notnecessarily have worried about. You know things that just happened.What sort of stories are you interested in telling?I’m interested in stories that say something about who we are and engage withsocial issues. My art has to have meaning; it has to have people talkingabout things that matter. Like We Need New Names, there’s so much about thatthat I wanted to say. That’s what drives me for now, you never know what willcome in future but to have a dialogue going and people talking about things.Who are some of your literary influences?The storytellers in my life, our literature is oral. There was a time when Iread nothing but literature in my native language which was still for me aform of engagement. I learned so much about storytelling from those and aboutlanguage itself. Then there were people like Yvonne Vera, Toni Morrison,Edward P Jones, the usual suspects. Young writers now are just creatingbrilliant work. Writers like Justin Torres and then you have people onlinewho may not necessarily be published. I’m creating at a very vibranttime. It’s a good time to be a writer and of course I’m connected to youngwriters, Africans and otherwise. We’re having interesting conversations.Which book do you wish you’d written and why?I wish I’d written the bible! Seriously, everybody reads the bible. Iapproach the bible as a storybook. I don’t come from a seriously Christianbackground. As kids you didn’t have the whole picture and we were told thesebible stories and they were just stories to us. I would have made itNoViolet’s bible. I may write a novel in that kind of style. Look me up infive or six years and see!What are you working on next?I’m working on recovering from writing and promoting We Need New Names. I’mworking on a collection of stories. I’m not trying to force it, sometimesthere’s this pressure to go straight onto the next book. In as much as I wantsomething to come along, it will come along when it does.---http://xokigbo.wordpress.com/2013/05/01/There are daddy issues here, there are no real men here. There are strongwhiffs of misandry; there are no real men here, Men are chief baboons in thiszoo called Paradise, hapless men fleeing women and children to go to SouthAfrica only to come home, not with bread but with AIDS, prosperity preachers,and men that impregnate their granddaughters and clueless men in the Diasporashuffling about aimlessly. It is what it is. Here comes Virginia Woolfululating out of the shadows, chasing men away from the playground:But then, with her enchanting way with words, she draws and paints harrowingpictures of a hell that strips men of their families and dignity with herevocative words. Hear her:---You should read this stunning book along with Chika Unigwe’s equallystunning essay in Aeon magazine, Losing my voice. In this intenselypersonal and evocative essay Unigwe gives voice to the deep anxieties facedby many immigrants like her as they came face to face with the dislocationfrom home. Unigwe’s experience is immediately before the muscular bringingdown of all walls by the Internet and social media, both works complementeach other greatly, in style, outlook and vision. The difference is thatwhile one senses that even beyond We Need New Names, the protagonists maybe still immersed in despair, Unigwe’s story ends in hope and triumph, awarrior overcoming her fears and finding the light switch in the dark. Butthe pain in Unigwe’s journey is heartrending: When I left Nigeria for Belgium, I made my husband’s home my own. But homesickness lodged like a stone inside me... When I began to write again, I discovered that I was not writing the kind of fiction I would have written back home. Certainly not at first. I wrote about displacement and sorrow. The voices of immigrants filled my head and spilled out on several pages of short stories and then a novel, The Phoenix. My characters were mostly melancholic women unable to return home but lacking the tools (or perhaps the temperament) to fit into their new home. They were victims browbeaten into silence by an alien culture and an alien climate. Perhaps it was me wanting to pass on what I had suffered to someone else. Maybe it is human nature to seek revenge even when there is none to be sought."The writer Taiye Selasi (of Ghana Must Go) has also forcefully fought againstthe pigeon-holing of "Africans" into predictable labels – andstereotypes. Under her fierce and passionate watch, the term Afropolitan hastaken wings, as in, we are the sum of our life’s experience. Read herpowerful and evocative essay, Bye-Bye Barber, and her powerful memoir-essayon being an African and you will get the sense that a generation of Africansis breaking free from the literature of Chinua Achebe and Camara Laye.---=Contents== 1 Hitting Budapest 2 Darling on the Mountain 3 Country-Game 4 Real Change 5 How They Appeared 6 We Need New Names 7 Shhhh 8 Blak Power 9 For Real10 How They Left11 Destroyedmichygen12 Wedding13 Angel14 This Film Contains Some Disturbing Images15 Hitting Crossroads16 How They Lived17 My America18 Writing on the Wall
Background reading
NoViolet Bulawayo tells of heartbreak of homecoming in Mugabe's Zimbabwe
David Smith, Johannesburg, 4 September 2013The Guardian'I went there in search of the Zimbabwe I knew and it was a shock: powercuts, water cuts ... and 80% of the population not working,' says authorNoViolet Bulawayo.A striking pen name certainly never did an author any harm on a crowdedbookshelf. NoViolet Bulawayo passes with flying colours. NoViolet means"with Violet", in memory of her mother who died when she was 18 monthsold. Bulawayo is her yearned-for home city in Zimbabwe."I come from a place of colourful names and identity's a big part of mycreative process," the 31-year-old, whose passport still says ElizabethTshele, explained during a book tour of neighbouring South Africa. "Ineeded a meaningful identity that could carry the weight of whatever I'mdoing. Just being without my biological mother shaped the person I am, theway I see the world."Bulawayo was born after Mugabe came to power at Zimbabwe's independence in1980. She emigrated at 18, joining her aunt in America, and returned fromexile for the first time in April this year. In just 13 turbulent years,she discovered, the Eden that she ached for had turned into a place shehardly recognised. "It was a strange country," Bulawayo told theGuardian. "I went there in search of the Zimbabwe I knew and it was ashock: power cuts, water cuts, just driving down the streets the potholeswere amazing, and 80% of the population not working. Just seeing thedesperation, wherever you went, people were struggling. That was a pictureof the country that I never knew."I knew from news and stories that things were hard, but being there andseeing it for myself was just heartbreaking. Even now knowing that thereare no answers, and it's not going to get better any time soon, iscrushing."The homecoming was a bittersweet experience for the writer, currently basedat Stanford University in California. "On one hand I was happy to be homeand seeing my father- he's 74 and his health was acting up at that time -and my siblings, but at the same time I couldn't relate to anything, Icouldn't understand anything, I felt like the country had changed thepeople and culture and I just felt like an outsider in my home. So I wouldbe having conversations and I'd just tune out, and yet people didn'trealise what was happening, that I was home but I was also lost."During her absence Zimbabwe endured chaotic farm seizures, economicmeltdown, hyperinflation and elections scarred by political violence and,in July this year, allegations of ballot rigging on an industrialscale. She respects Mugabe's part in the liberation struggle but believesthe 89-year-old must now bear responsibility for her paradise lost."If you haven't directly suffered, if you haven't directly felt the bruntof the cost of his person and his rule, it's easy to have that perspectivefrom a distance. In the States, people actually hail him as one of Africa'sleading statesmen, but the reality is the people on the ground have adifferent story and that's part of why I wrote the book.Bulawayo's father Noel, a retired police officer, had hoped she wouldbecome a lawyer in the US, and it was only after she won the 2011 Caineprize for African writing that she confessed her literary calling. Drawingon her own experience, We Need New Names tells the story of a girl wholoses her home in Zimbabwe and emigrates to America, where she is shockedby the grim weather and feels the tug of childhood nostalgia.
Review: Suzi Feay in FT.com
A gritty Man Booker-shortlisted debut novel explores childhood and exileSeptember 20, 2013Darling, the protagonist of NoViolet Bulawayo’s Man Booker-shortlisteddebut novel, rackets around the Zimbabwean shanty town of Paradise with herfriends. Chipo, 11, is mysteriously pregnant, and mute; cheerful Godknowshas shorts so thin his buttocks protrude; Sbho is beautiful, Bastardaggressive, and Stina the voice of reason. Even the grim surroundings can’tkeep this little gang down for long, as they run riot through the streets,stealing guavas, poking their noses into everything and scrawling on walls.Gradually we learn more about the shanty-dwellers. They were not born inpoverty; their families have been driven from their homes for opposing theregime of Robert Mugabe. The bitterness of the political situation barelyimpinges on the youngsters. Life, though tough, has a magic and zest,especially when they are playing exciting games such as "Find bin Laden".The fulcrum of the novel is the short chapter "How They Left", whichcircles around the repeated phrase "leaving in droves" in a poeticincantation: "Look at the children of the land leaving in droves, leavingtheir own land with bleeding wounds on their bodies and shock on theirfaces and blood in their hearts ... "The second half of the novel sees Darling relocated to America, livingfirst in Detroit and then moving to Kalamazoo, Michigan. (Bulawayo herselfwas born in Zimbabwe and moved to Kalamazoo when she was 18). While Darlingadjusts to her new life with a lack of surface fuss, underneath it she isaware that something has been broken that she will never be able to mend.There is a narrative arc but little plot, as Darling moves from anappalling situation in which she is happy, to a comfortable situation inwhich she is unhappy; from the influence of one group of friends toanother, shallower group. Sometimes Darling’s story dissolves into aheightened, depersonalised prose; the chapter "How They Lived" is a howl ofpain for the deracinated immigrant, cut off from parents back home andfrom their own westernised children, who "did not beg us for stories of theland we had left behind. They went to their computers and googled ... theylooked at us with something between pity and horror and said, Jeez, youreally come from there?"At present the short story seems a more natural fit for Bulawayo’s evidenttalent, but, as her presence on the Man Booker shortlist suggests, this isa young author to watch.
interview at The National, Abu Dhabi
Rebecca L Weber, October 14, 2013http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/noviolet-bulawayo-reveals-the-inspirations-behind-her-man-booker-prize-shortlisted-debut-novelHow does the oral culture that you were raised in affect your storytelling?During the holidays, we went to the rural areas where we would meet mygrandmother and storytelling was the daily form of entertainment. I grew upthinking that it was just normal, that the world was told throughstories. And my father was also a storyteller. At school, I’d always betelling stories to my friends.http://www.granta.com/New-Writing/New-Voice-NoViolet-BulawayoI was raised on orature – all around me people just told stories like itwas breathing, but it was really my late grandmother, Gog’ NaEdeni who satus down to stories every night as kids, and my pops, who shared hismother’s love for story, who really made an impact. Without those two Idoubt I’d be the kind of writer I am today. ]I started reading books and found a connection: they were also stories,just like the ones I had heard. It really gives a lot to my voice in thatwhen I write, I think of a listener, not necessarily a reader.I think the connection with told stories is more urgent, more true. You getone to two minutes to engage them, which taught me about voice andurgency. Which is why, when I write, my challenge is to write somethingthat the reader can’t put down.---NoViolet Bulawayo Tells Zimbabwe’s Story Through Eyes of Childrenhttp://blogs.wsj.com/speakeasy/2013/10/09/noviolet-bulawayo-tells-zimbabwes-story-through-eyes-of-children/Zimbabwean-born NoViolet Bulawayo is the first black African female to beon the Man Booker prize shortlist for her novel "We Need New Names." Thebook is an up-close and personal view of the costs President RobertMugabe’s 33 years in power have had on the country, told through the eyesof children.The book takes place during Zimbabwe’s political clampdown in the early2000s. Darling and her band of sharp-tongued friends, Bastard, Chipo,Godknows and Sbho, live in an overcrowded shack settlement calledParadise. Schools have been shut and many teachers have left the country.To pass the time, Darling and her crew hunt for guavas in wealthy suburbsand play games called "Find Bin Laden" while they dream of leaving. Theywitness friends beaten to death for fighting Mr. Mugabe’s party. And theywatch journalists come to film the funerals."Children of my generation, born after liberation, had never experiencedthings like that," Ms. Bulawayo said in a telephone interview earlier thismonth."Part of Zimbabwe’s problem is how the political system was set up. We’vereally just known one party, one president. Growing up, people werecomfortable. The country was unprepared for what happened," she said aboutthe unraveling of Zimbabawe’s political, economic and social fabric.Ms. Bulawayo has followed a similar path to her main character Darling. Sheleft home to attend college in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her original plan wasto study law, as her father wanted. Soon though, Ms. Bulawayo realized shewanted to be a writer."I grew up surrounded by people who told stories," Ms. Bulawayo said. "Itplanted the seed."Ms. Bulawayo was in Zimbabwe last month to promote "We Need New Names" justweeks after Mr. Mugabe won another disputed election in August. Unlike the2008 election, the vote this year was peaceful. Ms. Bulawayo said thecrowds at her Zimbabwe book launch were the biggest so far."The mood at the time was shock," said Ms. Bulawayo, who is now a WallaceStegner Fellow at Stanford University. "It’s another five years of the sameold stuff in Zimbabwe."As part of her transformation to being a writer, Ms. Bulawayo decided atuniversity she needed a new name herself, adopting her pen name fromElizabeth Tshele. Violet was her mother’s name. She passed away whenMs. Bulawayo was 18 months old. The "no" in the southern African languageNdebele means "with," so in essence the first name suggests she’ll alwaysbe "with" her mother Violet. Bulawayo is Zimbabwe’s second-largest city andis where Ms. Bulawayo spent her childhood and still calls home.Now, Ms. Bulawayo is looking to split her time between living somewhere inAfrica and the U.S."Africa is the center of my writing," she said. "Here you walk out the doorand nobody notices you. At home you know you’re alive, part of a community,people are in your business."
The political background: Rhodesia in 2000
[From 1975 to 1979, Rhodesia was embroiled in an increasingly violent civilwar. In 1980, an elecction was won outright by the black nationalist partyZANU-PF, but the white supremacists wanted none of it, and were planning acoup. Eventually, Smith met Mugabe, and they agreed to abide by theelection and that whites would continue to participate in government.bookexcerptise is maintained by a smallgroup of editors. get in touch with us!
bookexcerptise [at] gmail [] com.This review by Amit Mukerjee was last updated on : 2015 Sep 15
