We Need New Names
This unflinching and powerful novel tells the "deeply felt and fiercely written" story of a young girl's journey out of Zimbabwe to America (New York Times Book Review). Darling is only ten years old, and yet she must navigate a fragile and violent world. In Zimbabwe, Darling and her friends steal guavas, try to get the baby out of young Chipo's belly, and grasp at memories of Before. Before their homes were destroyed by paramilitary policemen, before the school closed, before the fathers left for dangerous jobs abroad. But Darling has a chance to escape: she has an aunt in America. She travels to this new land in search of America's famous abundance only to find that her options as an immigrant are perilously few. NoViolet Bulawayo's debut calls to mind the great storytellers of displacement and arrival who have come before her -- from Junot Diaz to Zadie Smith to J.M. Coetzee -- while she tells a vivid, raw story all her own. "Original, witty, and devastating." --People
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Community Reviews
The ending makes sense if you're familiar with online book world culture. (Took me 3 years and moving to online book groups during COVID.) Particularly websites and reviewers who focus on animal treatment. Still immersive and thought-provoking until the last few pages even if you have no idea why the author would choose that ending.
This books can be clearly divided into two very distinct eras of Darling's life: Zimbabwe and the U.S. it's about a young girl growing up in a not so child friendly environment and the somewhat innocence she maintains while her country unravels. Like other immigrants all over the world, she moves to another country for a better chance at life, but faces challenges adjusting to the new culture. The dangers she knew at home are different than the dangers she faces as a Black person in America. All the while she must acknowledge that she cannot truly relate to those left at home. She struggles like so many others, defining her role in her new country while maintaining some sort of semblance of her former self.
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