A review by eaendter
We Need New Names by NoViolet Bulawayo

5.0

One of the most beautiful books I have read in a long time. Bulawayon captures the tone and cadence of a young girl growing up half wild in a ravaged slum in Zimbabwe. Darling is by turns hilariously funny and breathtakngly acute in her estimation of the grownup world. Running with her gang from a settlement called Paradise, they steal guavas from the lush trees of Budapest--a more upscale suburb. They play ingenious games--the country game is a perfect child mirror of the reality of First World and THird World--an FInding bin Laden is fun only up to a point, then it becomes a bore. Eventually Darling is plucked out of this world and travels to the US to live with her Aunt in Destroyed, Michigan. And isn't that an apt misunderstanding of a foreign name! The remainder of the book follows Darling as she settles into a new home, new realities and remembers, but cannot recapture "home-home." There are parts of this book that are so acute, so perceptive, so beautiful the reader is stopped in her tracks. Wondering at such a soul.