We Need New Names

From the twice Booker-shortlisted author of GLORY

Select a format:

Retailers:

Amazon Blackwells Bookshop.org Foyles Hive Waterstones WHSmith

Summary

'There are times, though, that no matter how much food I eat, I find the food does nothing for me, like I am hungry for my country and nothing is going to fix that'

This is the story of Darling, uprooted from her family home by paramilitary police, and living in a Zimbabwean shanty called Paradise. Despite the turmoil, she revels in mischief and adventures with her friends, like stealing guavas from the rich neighbourhood, and singing Lady Gaga at the top of her voice.

But when Darling has a chance to forge a different life in America, she realises that this new paradise brings its own set of challenges. In We Need New Names a spirited girl grows into a powerful observer of global identity.

Meet ten of literature's most iconic heroines, jacketed in bold portraits by female photographers from around the world.

Reviews

We Need New Names is a "before" and "after" kind of novel, the kind that marks a new beginning, a new shift in the African literary tradition . . . To me, it is a complete novel in terms of aesthetics and politics
Mukoma Wa Ngugi, The Rise of the African Novel

About the author

NoViolet Bulawayo

NOVIOLET BULAWAYO grew up in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe. When she was eighteen, she moved to Kalamazoo, Michigan. Her first novel, We Need New Names, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize, the Guardian First Book Award and the Barnes & Noble Discover Award, and won a Betty Trask Award, Hemingway Foundation/PEN Award, Hurston-Wright Legacy Award, the Etisalat Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction. She has also won the Caine Prize for African Writing and a National Book Award's '5 Under 35'. NoViolet earned her MFA at Cornell University, and was a Stegner Fellow at Stanford University, where she taught fiction. She currently writes full-time, from wherever she finds herself.

Learn More