Dismantling the Notion of Identity, Belonging and Survival in NoViolet Bulawayo’s We Need New Names

Abstract

NoViolet Bulawayo is a young and powerful Zimbabwean author. Her short story Hitting Budapest (2010) won the 2011 Caine Prize for African Writing and after that, there was no turning back in her life.

We Need New Names (2010) is her first novel which narrates the lives of Darling and her friends Bastard, Godknows, Sbho, Stina and Chipo. These are starving children who are observing and residing in a crumbling country. Bulawayo in the novel narrates the absence of parents, political disorder, lost childhood, and shame. The book earned her international fame and she became the first Black African Zimbabwean woman shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2013. The novel traverses and shows personalities, national boundaries and ethnicities of Darling, an immigrant who fears of being an illegal migrant in an alien world.

Further, the concept of diaspora, homeland, and belonging has been dismantled through Darling’s narration, focusing on the ideas of loose roots and broken identities. Therefore, the study attempts to discuss the definition of the diasporic belonging and the challenges that are faced by those cultural communities.

Key Words: Belonging, Immigrant, Homeland, Diaspora and Cultural Communities.