We Need New Names
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| Author | NoViolet Bulawayo |
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| Language | English |
| Genre | Bildungsroman |
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Publication date
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May 2013 |
| Media type | Print, Electronic |
| Pages | 304 |
| ISBN | |
We Need New Names is the 2013 debut novel of expatriate Zimbabwean writer NoViolet Bulawayo. The first chapter of the book, "Hitting Budapest", initially presented as a story in the Boston Review, won the 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing,
A coming-of-age story, We Need New Names tells of the life of a young girl named Darling, first as a 10-year-old in Zimbabwe, navigating a world of chaos and degradation with her friends, and later as a teenager in the Midwest United States, where a better future seems about to unfold when she goes to join an aunt working there.
We Need New Names was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize (2013), the Guardian First Book Award shortlist (2013), and a Barnes & Noble Discover Award finalist (2013). It was the winner of the inaugural Etisalat Prize for Literature (2013), and won the prestigious Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award for debut work of fiction. It won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize Art Seidenbaum Award for First Fiction (2013).
The novel begins by following a group of mostly pre-teen children - the central character Darling and her friends Stina, Chipo, Bastard and Godknows - living in tin shacks in Zimbabwe after their homes have been bulldozed by Mugabe's paramilitary police. The author gives "a child's-eye view of a world where there is talk of elections and democracy but where chaos and degradation become everyday reality, where death and sickness and the threat of violence lurk" in a shanty town misleadingly named Paradise, where people try to hold on to dignity while families fracture. The children spend their days getting into mischief, stealing guavas from the rich neighbourhood known as "Budapest", inventing a life of adventure and make-believe, daydreaming of enjoying luxury overseas in places such as Dubai and America.
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