![]() ![]() ![]() Those with ambitions are crossing borders. Those with strength are crossing borders. Look at them leaving in droves, the children of the land. ![]() Not surprisingly the people in this land hold onto a dream that one day they can get out of this land. Their opinions count for nothing at the ballot box and hopes for real change die when the same order is re-elected, leaving them once again scratching for a living by selling trinkets and relying on aid agencies who dole out sweets and toys and meagre food items in return for freely taking photographs insensitive to the fact that the people they capture are embarrassed by their torn and dirty clothes. Its people long for ‘real change’ but they and their country are “falling apart” (a direct reference to Chinua Achebe’s novel). The Zimbabwe depicted in the novel is a country in the midst of crisis. I was reading this while on holiday and could look up from my shady spot across the Zambezi River to the very landscape in which the novel is set, imagining Darling and the friends and family in her town just beyond the trees. NoViolet Bulawayo’s book has a tremendously memorable narrative voice, thought provoking themes and characters so vividly drawn they practically jumped out of the page to shake your hand. ![]() It took me almost two years to get around to reading We Need New Names, the first novel by an author from Zimbabwe to be shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. ![]()
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