Reading Circle 63 ‚We Need New Names‘ by NoViolet Bulawayo

We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

Today’s book, We Need New Names, was shortlisted for the Guardian First Book Award and the Man Booker Prize.  It was published in 2013 and was the first novel for NoViolet Bulawayo, a pen name, belonging to Elizabeth Zandile Tshele. Her pen name is a tribute to her mother, who died when she was 18 months old.  No in her language means with, her mother’s name Violet, and the city where she grew up: Bulawayo.  She moved to the USA to study when she was 18.

The introduction on the back cover of the book says:

“Ten-year-old Darling has a choice: it’s down, or out.  In a shanty called Paradise, Darling and her friends spend their days stealing guavas and singing Lady Gaga, all while grasping at memories of life before and dreaming of escape – a dream that one day comes true for Darling. But, as Darling discovers, her new life in America is a far cry from what she imagined and this new world brings with it dangers of its own…”

The book has autobiographical elements. It reads like a scrapbook of verbal memories, but not in chronological order. It starts in the middle of Darling’s life in Africa and ends there. In between it goes back and forward to different times and experiences in her life. Certain details vital to the story are only supplied towards the end. It’s like you are trying to complete a jigsaw to get the whole picture – but actually it’s not the whole picture. The book prompts more questions than it answers.   It deals with some big themes: the effects of turmoil caused by bad government in post-Colonial Africa, about displacement, at home and abroad, about poverty, about the whole migrant experience.

Music Played
Just Dance by Lady Gaga
Under African Skies by Paul Simon and Miriam Makeba

Recommendations for reading from our Reading Circle members.

• Mythos: The Greek Myths Retold by Stephen Fry :  A selection of the Greek myths, stylishly retold.

• A Matter of Death and Life by Marilyn Yalom and Irvin D. Yalom:  A year-long journey by the renowned psychiatrist and his writer wife after her fatal diagnosis, as they reflect on how to love and live without regret.

• A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon:  Haddon paints a disturbing and yet amusing portrait of a dignified man trying to go insane politely.

• The Salt Path by Raynor Winn:  An honest and life-affirming true story of coming to terms with grief and the healing power of the natural world.

• Celestial Bodies by Omani writer Jokha Alharthi:  Tells the subtle and quietly anguished story of several unhappy marriages.

• A Spy Among Friends by Ben McIntyre:  The almost unbelievable true story of how spy Kim Philby managed to fool the British Establishment for decades, meticulously researched and told with verve by master storyteller Ben McIntyre.

• Deaf Sentence by David Lodge: A funny, moving account of one man’s effort to come to terms with ageing and mortality –  classic meditation on modern middle-age that fans of David Lodge will love.