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We need new names novel5/25/2023 ![]() ![]() Bulawayo is loyal to her narrator’s perspective, which changes dramatically over the course of the novel as Darling herself grows from an inquisitive child in Zimbabwe into a lonely teenager in Kalamazoo, Michigan. We Need New Names is Darling’s memoir, fragmented into chapters, many of which can stand alone as stories (and are titled as such). Starting in 2005, the government program Operation Murambatsvina (“Clear out Rubbish”) destroyed entire neighborhoods in a few hours, leaving more than 300,000 people homeless. But Darling doesn’t know any of this, only that their house is gone. NoViolet Bulawayo’s debut novel, We Need New Names (Little, Brown), opens in Paradise, the Zimbabwe shantytown where Darling and her mother have lived since their house was bulldozed by the government. Bulawayo’s new novel, Glory, published earlier this month, and Scherm’s new novel, A House Between Earth and the Moon, is out today. ![]() The review was originally published on June 3, 2013. In today’s feature, Rebecca Scherm reviews NoViolet Bulawayo’s debut novel, We Need New Names. Editor’s Note: For the first several months of 2022, we’ll be celebrating some of our favorite work from the last fourteen years in a series of “ From the Archives” posts. ![]()
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