We need new names: By NoViolet Bulawayo. London: Reagan Arthur Books, 2013; pp 290.

Abstract

The novel captures the Diaspora experience of a young girl, Darling Nonkululeko Nkala, after experiencing hardships in the Zimbabwean economic meltdown. It is therefore a critique of moving to the Diaspora as a solution to challenges in one’s country. Darling constantly refers to the pain of missing home but stuck in the knowledge that she can never return because she has become an illegal immigrant in America. Once she visits ‘home’ she will not be allowed to come back as her papers are not in order. What intensifies the pain is the misunderstanding by those that remain in the troubled country that those in America are sitting pretty, with no worries at all. This pushes aunt Faustina and others to work double shifts so that they can send money home. The chapter “How they lived” fully captures the experience of those in the Diaspora from third world countries which gives the book a universal feel. Bulawayo writes: And the jobs we worked, Jesus- Jesus – Jesus, the jobs we worked. Low paying jobs. Back breaking jobs. Jobs that gnawed at the bones of our dignity, devoured the meat, tongued the marrow. We took scalding irons and ironed our pride fl at. We cleaned toilets. We picked tobacco and fruit under the boiling sun until we hung our tongues and panted like lost hounds. We butchered animals, slit throats, drained blood. We worked with dangerous machines, holding our breaths like crocodiles under water, our minds on the money and never on our lives. We swallowed every pain like a bitter pill, drank every fear like a love portion, and we worked and worked Every two weeks we got our paychecks and sent monies back home by Western Union and MoneyGram. We bought food and clothes for the families left behind; we paid school fees for the little ones. We got messages that said Hunger, that said Help, that said Kunzima, and we sent money. When we were asked, You guys work so hard, why do you work so hard? We smiled (We Need New Names, p. 244).